A collaboration with TakePart.

The Botany of Desire – Trailer from Kikim Media on Vimeo.

Apples, Tulips, Marijuana and Potatoes and their evolutionary influence over us. The Botany of Desire examines this unique relationship through the stories of four familiar species, telling how each of them evolved to satisfy one of our most basic yearnings. Linking our fundamental desires for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control with the plants that gratify them  – The Botany of Desire shows that we humans are intricately woven into the web of nature, not standing outside it.

One major lesson: Monoculture = Bad. Who wants to live a place where everything is the same anyway?

good food / fresh juice

Started by my friends Elle Lien and Joey Lynch, Daily Grub is a farm to table vegetarian restaurant in Omaha, NE. It’s a great place that has undergone quite a renovation on 20th and Pierce. Good food, fresh juice, great vibes. If you’re in the area, do stop in for some brunch. Find them on Facebook. And ride your bike there and receive 1/2 off any single item.

The latest from Michael Pollan

Food Rules. Simple. Handy. Easy to understand. A collection of rules for healthy eating answering the question, “what should I eat?” Some notable ones: #11 Avoid foods you see advertised on television. #36 Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk. #58 Do all your eating at a table. #19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t. Goes nicely with the mainstay “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” All with the goal of getting people off the modern western diet, with its abundance of processed food, refined grains and sugars, and its sore lack of vegetables, whole grains and fruit. If you’ve got some to add, you can email Michael Pollan at pollanfoodrules@gmail.com.

2010 TED Prize Wish: “I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

Watch his talk at TED.com: Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

Quite a TED performance. Personal. Political. Passionate. If we’re going to make lasting changes in our society, we HAVE TO directly challenge “conventional wisdom” and those powerful interests who want to keep things exactly as they are. Some of what comes out of a challenge like that is going to be uncomfortable. It’s going to come with ridicule. Probably some ruthless assaults from the “free-marketeers.” But to fix our ills, we’ve got to hit ‘em head on.