Michael Pollan

Well, you know, I began my writing career as a gardener.

So I had that sort of daily interaction with plants and watching them closely and learning also about their importance to diet.

And, you know, when I decided to write a book on consciousness, I didn't think it'd have anything to do with plants.

It turns out I got very interested in, are plants conscious or not?

So it's the through line, I think, of my work is this passion for understanding plants.

They're so weird and different than we are that they're hard for us to understand.

As Darwin said, they're like upside down animals.

Their brain is in their root tips, he thought, and their sexual organs are up on top, just the opposite of us.

I just have huge respect for them.

They are masters of biochemistry.

Many of our drugs are based on molecules produced by plants.

They've invented molecules that radically change human consciousness.

They're just geniuses at biochemistry.

In a word, monoculture, growing too much of the same thing.

In the US, it's corn or maize and soybeans.

And for most of the agricultural belt in the United States, those two crops take turns in the field.

Neither of them are food exactly.

They're the raw material for processed food, and they're animal feed, and they're the basis for biofuels.

But we grow huge amounts of corn in giant monocultures that would fail if not for lots of chemical application.

Because monocultures are just not the way nature works.