Join two of the world’s most celebrated food writers as they hold up a mirror to our human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” – Michael Pollan
From the first days of River Cottage to his landmark campaigns against factory farming, few people can claim to have changed the nation’s relationship to food as profoundly as the chef, broadcaster, and activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
But Michael Pollan is one. The Californian journalist changed the way the world thinks about food with books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire – and is now doing the same for psychedelics and psychoactive plants. His book How To Change Your Mind spawned new research and new state laws: it is no exaggeration to call it the locus of a revolution in public opinion and market behaviour. Money is pouring into psychedelic research for depression, addictions, PTSD, and into lifestyle clinics for the mindfully curious.
Now Michael joins Hugh in conversation live on stage in London to guide us through this new world: exploring in particular his engagement with three mind changing plants with which we’ve lived for centuries if not millennia – the poppy, coffee plant, and cactus.
This isn’t just a talk about opium, caffeine and mescaline: it’s a change to explore a new view of the brain, of consciousness and of human possibility. Don’t miss this tour through a new paradigm in human perception and potential with two of the most exciting writers and activists of our time.
Praise for Michael Pollan’s This is Your Mind on Plants:
“It’s a trip – engrossing, eye-opening, mind altering.” – New Statesman
“Fascinating. Pollan is the perfect guide … curious, careful, open minded.” – The Guardian
“Expert storytelling . . . [Pollan] masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways.” – New York Times
“I felt the scales fall from my eyes as I realised why almost every workplace I’ve ever been in has offered free tea and coffee to its employees.” – Kevin Perry, Independent