Hacker Cinema
The Botany of Desire
2009 · Film · documentary · 116 min
Directed by Michael Schwarz
Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an exploration of the human relationship with the plant world — seen from the plants' point of view. Narrated by Frances McDormand, the program shows how four familiar species — the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato — evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
4 comments on Hacker News
Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan is a great book / documentary that explores this view.
I would recommend a couple of documentaries in this context about sugar.
1. The Botany of Desire [1]
See the part about selective breeding of apples that are sweet, where varieties with other tastes are either discarded or used for making apple cider vinegar.
2. That Sugar Film [2]
This goes into detail on the amount of sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) added to all kinds of foods that people would consider as normal and "healthy". It's really shocking how invisible such things are to consumers.
[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1421383/
[2]: http://thatsugarfilm.com/
Everyone here would like the documentary "the botany of desire"
There is a fascinating documentary - Botany of Desire http://video.pbs.org/video/1283872815/. The video shows that even fruits are grown in ways so as to make them taste better, and therefore more consumption.