I Hate Plants, They’re Boring… Or are they?

Every class I teach is the same, I have a plethora of extremely intelligent, extremely bright, young people sat in front of me. Some have offers for medicine, one for dentistry, two for veterinary, many want to do biomedical science to go onto become medical researchers. All is going well, until I say, ‘today’s lesson will be about photosynthesis.’ Well, there is mutiny, ‘Ah Miss, I hate plants’; ‘Miss, do we have to?’; ‘I want to be a doctor, why do I need to know about plants?’ Well let’s start with that question.

Where do you think drugs come from? Admittedly, many will be made synthetically in factories, but the first drugs came from plants and we still use them today. For example, aspirin, or acetylsalicyclic acid, is one of our oldest medications. It has been used since the times of Hippocrates and the Ancient Egyptians, who used willow bark, containing salicylates, to treat fever and pain. A more recent use is in the treatment of heart disease as it can stop platelets sticking together, preventing the artery-blocking clots that can lead to a heart attack. In fact, if you ever find yourself stuck up a mountain with someone who is having a suspected heart attack, if a first aider or medical professional is with you, provide them with aspirin it could save their life.

Medicinal drugs are great, but let’s be honest they are secondary to feeding ourselves, which plants are also great for. How important food is has been exemplified this week, you only have to wander around your local supermarket to see that, when we all panic, we very quickly bleed the shelves dry. Therefore, wouldn’t it be great if rather than import potatoes from Egypt we knew more about plants and could be more self-sufficient? For this, you could start foraging, but beware going foraging if you didn’t pay attention when we covered taxonomy and classification! In the UK, the top of the list for foraging is blackberries (Rubus fruticosus), I personally make jam out of them, but beware of deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), which looks like a blackcurrant and is actually a member of the potato family. Belladonna means beautiful lady in Italian and the name comes from the risky practice in which women used the juice to dilate their pupils to look prettier. Drink too much and you can expect fever, fast heart rate, hallucination, inability to sweat, convulsions and eventually coma. I think we can all agree this wouldn’t be ideal.

If you classify correctly and make a few dietary changes, you could help in the fight against climate change. In the US, it is estimated that 8 tonnes of yearly greenhouse gas emissions per household are from the grocery shopping [1]. The worst offenders are meat, cheese and eggs, none of which are plant based. I’m not saying don’t eat meat, cheese and eggs, I personally love a bacon and cheese omelette. However, if we cut down on animal products and ate more plant based food, we would reduce greenhouse gases which, in turn, would slow down climate change.

Foods wise, we have the massive problem of how are we going to feed nearly 10 billion people in 2050? Already, a vast amount of people are undernourished as they can’t afford or have access to food and this will only get worse. To feed us all we need to produce 30 percent more food on the same land space, so how can we do this? It’s contentious and often argued against, but actually used well, the answer could be GM crops. Now, I love ‘Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham’ and I loved the television adaptation with Eddie Izzard. However, John Wyndham may have a lot to answer for in our hate for genetic engineering. It is very unlikely that we will produce a triffid, which is a tall, man-eating plant, but it is very likely that genetic technology could allow us to increase crop yield. Gene editing can even allow us to grow crops where we haven’t been able to before, such as in the arctic tundra. One method of doing this is by using CRISPR gene editing, in which an enzyme, acting as DNA scissors, can cut a piece of DNA allowing the desired gene to be neatly slotted into the DNA sequence (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Image taken from: JULIE DEERING, Who owns CRISPR? [online] Seed World, November 16, 2018. Accessed March 20, 2020. https://seedworld.com/who-owns-crispr/.

The more plants we can grow in one area and the more we reduce our intake of animal products, the more we can stop land clearances. Therefore, places such as the Amazon Rainforest can stay as intact as possible.  Now, many of you are thinking, I know where this is going, the Amazon produces 20% of the world’s oxygen. No it does not, there is not enough carbon dioxide in the world for all the trees on Earth to make 1/5 of the world’s oxygen.  It is actually phytoplankton, in the ocean, that produces most of our oxygen. However, the Amazon and other rainforests are incredibly important for maintaining biodiversity and clearing rainforests can lead to mass extinctions of many plants and animals. Also, whilst it might not be the oxygen producer you were dreaming of, the Amazon rainforest is brilliant for absorbing carbon dioxide which reduces global warming and climate change. Therefore, it is completely counterproductive to clear it by burning the forest.

Closer to home. I am currently self-isolating due to the Corona Virus, I’m not ill, but rather asthmatic. Those who know me will tell you that I am not good at being in the house; I like to be up a mountain somewhere. However, this doesn’t look likely for some time. I was getting a bit down in the dumps, when a family member sent me her gardening column. It really inspired me to use my own green space, which I am fortunate enough to have. So, yesterday evening, I went to peruse my overgrown garden and started tending it. I felt so much better and the fresh air in my lungs allowed me to sleep better. This is anecdotal I know, but sometimes, when work or studying gets you down, the best thing you can do is get out, listen to the bees collecting nectar, watch the wood pigeons nesting in the trees and absorb your own bit of nature. If you don’t have a garden, see if you can find a local park. You cannot deny that these plant-based areas are good for your mental health!

So, to my students and all those studying biology, I hope you found this enlightening and let me never hear you say plants are boring again!

References:

1. GREEN EATZ, Food’s Carbon Footprint [online] Green Eatz. Accessed on March 20, 2020. https://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html
2. JULIE DEERING, Who owns CRISPR? [online] Seed World, November 16, 2018. Accessed March 20, 2020. https://seedworld.com/who-owns-crispr/.