Happy Halloween!

This evening we headed out to the Canalside Steps of Granary Square in King's Cross to see an interesting Halloween display featuring a total of  3,000 illuminated carved pumpkins - it was quite impressive! If you're in the area this evening, I definitely recommend checking it out. In the spirit of eliminating waste from the event, the organisers will be giving out the uncarved pumpkins tomorrow free of charge along with an exclusive recipe from the area's best chefs! The carved pumpkins will be composted by Global Generation and London Waste EcoPark Compost Centre. You can find out more information here.

I wish you all a nice and spooky evening filled with seasonal treats and good company. I'll see you back here soon to talk about the environmental impacts of Halloween's possibly most favoured treat: chocolate!

Food-Waste Rebel

Remember a while back when we talked about Tristram Stuart and his campaigns to end food waste? He's been recently featured as a National Geographic 2014 Emerging Explorer, and has released an excellent new video. You can check it out here:

I'll be back soon to talk about the environmental impacts of cocoa and coffee production!

Intoxication Season at Kew Gardens

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Kew Gardens. For my overseas readers, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew were founded in 1759 and named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The garden's mission is to "inspire and deliver science-based plant conservation world-wide, enhancing the quality of life". The site is home to numerous impressive greenhouses, different plant ecosystems and habitats, and a large number of seasonal exhibitions.

For my first visit at Kew Gardens, I went to see a very interesting exhibition called The Intoxication Season. The exhibition showcased the history behind intoxicating plants and fungi, and highlighted the ways in which plants can be used as both medicines and intoxicants. Throughout the garden, specific plants were indicated by a poison symbol, and information was provided on the ways they have historically been used as either medicines or intoxicants. In addition to the various displays throughout the gardens, guided tours were given, including the Dark Side of Plants Tour which I attended. The tour was delivered by one of the garden's excellent volunteers,  who brought the group around different parts of the garden unveiling the dangerous secrets hiding behind the exteriors of many beautiful plants. We talked about the celebrated and well-known effects of plants including Cofea (coffee), Theobroma cocoa (chocolate), Aconitum (wolfsbane), Papaver somniferum (opium), Artemisia absinthium (absinthe),  Ephedera (epinephrine), and Salvia officinalis (sage), among many others. 

The part of the tour that particularly struck me was the guide's emphasis on the fact that plants produce their intoxicating or medicinal properties for their own benefit - not for the benefit of humans or other animal species. Although these chemicals and compounds have been of great use to humankind for millennia, they were not particularly intended for our use, and above-all serve the plants themselves, often through defensive mechanisms. The guided tour ended at a greenhouse that was entirely devoted to The Intoxication Season, which housed some of the most mind-altering plant varieties, including Cannabis (marijuana), Coca (cocaine), Salvia divinatum (salvia), Agave (tequila), and many more.

Throughout the tour and my visit at Kew Gardens, I found that I had a lot of questions about these special plants, besides their particular mind-altering properties. It's great that we have been able to tap into the benefits of such truly remarkable plants - but what are the environmental consequences of our preference for certain species? How has the rapid expansion in demand for certain products affected the environment? How are these plants produced on large scales? In light of these unanswered questions, I will be devoting the next few blog posts here at Picnics Past & Present on the environmental impacts of the production of some of the mind-altering species I saw at Kew Gardens. I also plan to focus on some of my personal favourites - coffee and chocolate!