🖖 Now that's eating local

I don’t think I told you the vision that first got me into the plant based world.

Today’s the day.

I had been working at an Italian restaurant in Asia for a while, but it was getting time for a change of scenery.

This was back in 2010-11. I was doing some market research for what would be a viable restaurant business idea.

My mind was racing through all sorts of ideas. The weirdest was a Mongolian BBQ joint.

I laugh thinking about it now.

At the time the world was experiencing a couple food-borne illness outbreaks from produce. I remember spinach being recalled because E. Coli was found. I can’t remember what the second one was.

But it made me think.

With all these uncertainties popping up in the food supply, I bet people would feel better if they knew they could trust the restaurant they were eating at.

How can I do that?

Well I suppose the only way to trust the restaurant would be if they could see their food growing right in front of them. Behind a glass wall in a smaller separate room.

You would be able to see the staff go and clip off the produce for your order.

At least that’s how it was in my head.

So I did my research.

Came across words like hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics and how they can be arranged into towers called vertical farms.

In case these are new to you:

• Hydroponics- growing plants in a nutrient filled water solution without soil. The roots are constantly submerged and drained.

• Aeroponics- uses much less water than hydroponics because the water is sprayed or misted onto the root systems

• Aquaponics- the same as hydroponics except that fish provide a natural nutrient solution for the plants

All three are closed-loop systems. Nutrient rich water is given to the plants which filter the water before being returned to the beginning.

The more I looked into it all, the less I thought about the one restaurant with a wall of lettuce. I started to imagine creating one of these vertical farms.

Picture it:

A five-story mostly glass building.

The top four stories are the farm towers. The ground floor would be a market for purchasing your super-local produce. And there would also be a small cafe type venue with a menu that featured items from the tower.

I prefer aquaponics over the other two, so there would be a large fish tank in the tower that serves as both a visual centrepiece and the food source for the levels above.

And there you have it. My little dream.

I’ve continued to research it over the years. The more I did, the more exciting it became. All the technologies exist to make these viable economic centres for communities.

You could open one in each district or community. With food not coming from one large industrial farm, there’d be fewer opportunities for health scares since fewer people would be effected.

And if an issue pops up, you can remove the effected produce, sanitise the area and begin again the next day with a new crop.

There are window treatments that can remove impurities from the rain water as it slides down the building. This water could be added to the system reducing the stress on the water supply.

Alternate power sources like solar panels and vertical wind turbines exist to ease the strain on the power grid.

I got a whole list of ideas like this.

Next step

I figured that no one would want to work with me on this because I was a regular chef.

What would I know about plants?

So it seemed wise to immerse myself in the plant-based world so that the powers-that-be would deem me worthy of business.

I was moving to Hong Kong at the time and was introduced to a vegetarian/vegan restaurant who just happened to be looking for a new chef.

Well I haven’t opened any vertical farms yet. But I did spend a good six years working in plant-based places.

I’ve earned my stripes.

Who knows.

I started this newsletter about our lives out in space. And it has shown that the efforts to keep us alive out there are the same efforts that can make plenty of improvements for our food down here.

Maybe I can still make those vertical farms a reality.