This Is Your Mind On Plants

 Shirley J.    Adult Non-Fiction             How plants enhance life through sustenance, stimulants, pain relief        

This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan   288 pages  

Michael Pollan explores how life enhances when you add plants.  Plants are wonderful sustenance in the forms of fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices, then moving further to coffee, tea with their stimulating caffeine boosts to help focus our minds and make us alert.   He also discusses the poppie plant whose seed head can also be used in tea form.   However, one is legal and one is not, much like tobacco which can be smoked and marijuana which is becoming legalized in more states in the U.S. but still an issue in some and regulated in others.   Pollan discusses at length the positive attributes of opium and mescaline and their uses in rituals for their consciousness shifting abilities.  He shares a lot on peyote and ayahuasca the latter only legal when used in Native American religious ceremonies and ayahuasca used in South American religious shamanic spiritual rituals and medicine.   Lots of information and all presented so entertaingly by Michael Pollan who has the unique ability to present lots of concepts in a completely down to earth enlightening way.   I recommend this one to adults as he goes into not just the biology of plants but also the  husbandry and the outcomes.    A good book he shares his own experiences as a gardener and experimenter.