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Strange vegetables from hydroponics!
Even educational institutions like the Singapore Polytechnic and Ngee Ann Polytechnic get into the action by conducting so-called "research" -- which are crude and basic studies, some of which prove nothing more than young people prefer the taste of hydroponic vegetables. I have written about these strange vegetables on several occasions, both in the Singapore newspapers as well as my natural health newsletter, The Good Life. I have repeatedly called for research into the nutritional profile of these vegetables, as well as the long-term health effect of eating them. To date, after close to 20 years, the points that I raised have still not been addressed. This article on was first published in a 1994 issue of The Good Life, which had the theme, Strange foods. Click here to read a commentary, based on some of my letters to the press about hydroponics.
Imagine vegetable farms on the roof tops of HDB flats. Why not? Nowadays, vegetables can be grown just about anywhere, without land and without soil. They can be grown in solutions of chemical fertilizers, or even hung in mid-air, with hi-tech farming -- hydroponics and aeroponics. Some of the vegetables grown this way are indeed very strange. For example, aeroponic vegetables have extra long, extra huge roots. The scientists who developed them don’t seem concerned. They worry more about whether it can be economically viable. Stranger than the vegetables, however, is the fact that they are being promoted as being healthy. Well, they are not sprayed with pesticides. And that’s good. But it does not necessary mean that eating them will make you healthier. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that eating them will weaken you instead. Because these vegetables are weak. They have weak colour -- pale green; weak flavour -- not much taste; and weak texture -- soft and watery. In macrobiotic terms, we say they are very extreme yin (expansive). That’s why they grow bigger and faster.
Research on hydroponics Studies in Taiwan, a leader in hydroponics technology, found that such vegetables have very high levels of nitrates. Nitrates are cancer-causing and these vegetables have about 100 times the normal level. The Singapore Polytechnic has done nutritional analyses to “dispel the myth” that hydroponic vegetables are inferior. The vegetables were found to have much vitamin C and more potassium, but less sodium and copper, than vegetables grown in soil. This was cited as “proof” that they were just as nutritious. Is it? The research was very skimpy, comparing only the levels of a handful of nutrients. It was not broad-based and did not cover even the majority of nutrients needed for human health/ High levels of vitamin C and potassium confirm the macrobiotic view that hydroponic vegetables are very yin -- since vitamin C is the most yin vitamin, while potassium is the most yin mineral. Potassium is said to be “good” for heart problems and even cancer while sodium is said to be “bad”. But this is a narrow view of nutrition. What matters more is the ratio of sodium to potassium. As for the lower level of copper, the researchers saw this as the absence of pollution. I see it as the absence of minerals. Copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, iron and other minerals are essential for health. They are our source of strength. As it is, these minerals are very lacking in vegetables grown in chemically-fertilized soil. In a 1984 study, scientist at Rutgers University found that organic vegetables contain up to four times as much minerals as chemically grown vegetables. If the Singapore Polytechnic study had compared organic with hydroponics vegetables, it would have found a greater difference. Minerals come from the soil. And plants need soil -- not just a few nutrients mixed into a chemical cocktail. Plants need the whole soil -- the clay, humus, bacteria, fungi, the earthworms… Clay regulates a plant’s water supply. It stores water when there is too much; it releases water when there isn’t enough. Humus makes the soil rich, dark and spongy. It also regulates the supply of minerals. If the soil has too much of one mineral, it remains in the humus and is not absorbed by plants. If it has too little, whatever there is goes to the plant. Fungi helps plants to absorb nutrients as well. And, fungi produce antibiotic substances which make plants more resistant to disease. When animals and humans eat these plants, they too, become more resistant. This was observed as far back as 1910 by an agricultural scientist, Albert Howard. He raised oxen on organically grown fodder, and then he set them free. Howard wrote: “My oxen duly came in contact with other oxen, suffering from, among other things, foot-and-mouth disease. I myself have seen my cattle rubbing noses with foot-and-mouth cases. No infection occurred.” A more remarkable story tells of a fox rancher who fed organic vegetables to his foxes which were ill from tuberculosis. Six of seven foxes recovered. Moreover, the quality of their pelts improved beyond recognition. Soon, he was running a highly profitable business, buying up sick foxes at rock bottom prices, and re-selling them as healthy animals with thick, lustrous coats. Where did the fox rancher get the idea from? From reading about Dr Max Gerson, who cured his chronic migraine with mainly raw vegetables and fruits? Later, Gerson cured patients suffering from arthritis, diabetes, lupus, heart disease, psoriasis and other disease, including cancer. Dr Gerson insisted that his patients ate organic vegetables and fruits as far as possible. He believed that cancer and other serious will never be wiped out until we return to organic farming. Instead of returning to natural, organic farming, we are headed in the other direction -- towards more artificial farming with hydroponics and aeroponics, towards more strange food that will bring strange diseases.
However, recent nutritional discoveries about phytonutrients strongly suggest that hydroponic vegetables have much lower content of phytonutrients compared to organic vegetables. Click here to read about phytonutrients in organic and hydroponics vegetables.
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