I have begun exploring this book and experimenting with it’s recipes.

The recipes are great, but from an ethnobotanical perspective the book is very Eurocentric/Asia-centric.

Another thing about this book that bothers me is how it talks about creating a “plant powered life” and the importance of Chi (lifeforce or Prana) in food and the importance of connecting with nature, but then it promotes buying packaged and processed products from far away places and presents connecting with nature in a sort of “voyeur / spectator sport” context involving going on “plantventures” (the author’s word) which either involves expensive exclusive herbalism retreats at his high end facilities in LA and/or going to far away countries on expensive vacations (which most of us cannot afford) in order to connect with nature (temporarily and through “expert” intermediaries) in some exotic location.

Why are "plantventures” not explored in the context of the forests near where we live, creating our own medicinal gardens and/or forest gardens? Why are "plantventures” not encouraged in the context of connecting with the medicinal cultural wisdom of the people's that called Turtle Island home before we came to live here?

The author mentioned the home garden briefly, but only in the context of harvesting nutritive “weeds” and mostly gave the impression that you need to be a wealthy consumer in order to participate in the “plant protocol/plant powered life”.

I think that connecting with nature as a "spectator/voyeur" perspective and mainly consumeristic approach is all wrong and totally backwards. For me, a “plant powered life”, connecting with nature, accessing potent phytonutrients and phytochemicals in plants for medicine and ensuring they have good Chi necessitates growing them at home and/or sourcing them out from a beyond organic (regenerative local farm) if possible.

One thing that I have found to be disappointing is the fact that the author lives in the United States but the book is sorely lacking in offering info and recipes for medicine plants that are native to the middle and northern part of Turtle Island. It covers a handful of species such as slippery elm, elderberry, Linden, Rhodiola rosea and some medicinal fungi (some of which are globally ubiquitous in temperate climates) but for the most part the book focuses on only the plants that are known to TCM, Ayurveda and the medicinal plants known to the cultures which represent the centers of imperialistic statist regimes in Europe and Asia (with a handful of Mayan superfoods).

With that being said, so far, I have found that many of the recipes are often both delicious and effective medicinally so in purely the context of culinary formulation and medicinal efficacy I would give this book a 7 out of 10.

I do appreciate all the helpful info on the medicinal benefits of the plants and fungi covered in the book, however, when it comes to a book that presents itself as comprehensive in relation to plant based medicines, I find the focus on European, Chinese and Indian (as in from India) plants (and the almost complete omission of Turtle Island medicinal practices and plants) to have a vibe that feels like a continuation of the fallacious, imperialistic, condescending and colonial attitude that viewed the indigenous peoples of this land as “having insignificant contributions”, being seen as “less advanced”, “uncivilized” or “primitive” (which has been pushed in academic circles in the west in a big way until relatively recently, and still is in some instances). Perhaps the author is fully aware of the vast array of powerful medicine plants that are native to Turtle Island (aka “North America”) and did not feel like putting out the effort of doing the more difficult research of gathering pertinent studies and experimenting with pioneering recipes (and he does not have any superiority complex attitude towards the plant medicines of Turtle Island cultures) but either way, I think that is a big shortcoming of books like this.

I’ll take some pics of some of the good quality material and upload to archive dot org (and share in a comment below) so you can try some of the recipes and benefit from the plant/fungi lists while creating in the kitchen and apothecary, because honestly I do not think it would be worth buying the book as a whole considering it’s consumeristic, quasi-elitist and Eurocentric/Asia-centric focus.

Reading books like this serve to re-iterate and emphasize how important it is for me to double down on my efforts to make my next book more holistic in its approach to presenting plants and fungi as medicine. While publishers may try to pressure authors to become specialized in only writing about one isolated topic in a book (eg the physiological benefits of plant medicines but not anything to do with the ecological roles of those plants) I think that this separation, specialization and compartmentalization mentality is detrimental in the larger scheme of things.

In other words, while buying all the ingredients covered in the book below and making those recipes daily will likely result in increased levels of health and longevity for the typical American or Canadian, it also would inevitably result in exploitative pressure being exerted on ecosystems and so it is not necessarily a path that is regenerative for the living Earth. It means healing the human body, while ignoring the needs of the body of the Earth. That pathway of seeing the Earth as a “resource” to be mined and seeing cultivating our own food and medicine as “drudgery reserved for peasants” as some brainwashed people have come to see it, is what has gotten us to where we are now in this time of massive ecological degeneration on Turtle Island.

Perhaps those who are wealthy in fiat currency can maintain their health in the way suggested in books like this, but it comes at the cost of the health of ecosystems far and wide, stealing from future generations and far away peoples so that one can take the easy / self-interested path to attaining longevity for our bodies.

We need to be tending to the health of the land where we live first and foremost and doing so in a way that also provides us with food and medicine, otherwise we will just see more of the same exploitative relationship between humans and the Earth.

Publishers, universities, governments pressuring people to become “experts” on fragmented and isolated areas of study create authors, scientists and policy makers that are disconnected from the relationships with Earth that make their medicines, projects and institutions possible (resulting in more consumerism, exploitation and less reciprocity and reverence for the land). I have experienced this myself with publishers and I refuse to fold under such pressure. It will take me longer to write my book on my own steam, and even longer to save up to self-publish/print it (without professional publisher support) but I feel that the end result which provides a more holistic and regenerative guide to the reader will be worth it.

If we want to break the cycles of exploitative relationships that humans have chosen to have with the ecosystems we depend on to nourish and heal ourselves we need to look at localizing our food and medicine production methods and using our own two hands to nurture a reciprocal relationship.

I am grateful for this Plant Protocol book as it reminds me how important it is to take a step back, honor the cultural wisdom of the people who called the land home where I live now in pre-colonial times and look at the bigger picture of how sourcing ingredients can impact ecology as a write my next book.