Excess amounts of nitrates in plants?

[steven baxter]

I am a member on a permaculture forum. The topic of high amounts of nitrates and plants are not as nutritional to eat. This is the first I have heard of this. Here is the response in the forum:

 

...."it isnt an efficient way to grow land based plants at all. It costs a ton in raw materials. Also to get many types of plants to do well you needed to add specific nutrients, then regulate those so you dont have to much. In leafy greens that many grow there is an over abundance of nitrites (which can happen in th soil as well, but in a water system its their whole job) and end up unhealthy to eat. I saw some tests out of some third world country that showed lots of veggies were missing key nutritional elements, and they related it back to it being a land based plant being grown in the water."

 

Is this true, if so can it be corrected?

[TCLynx]

I've also read lists of plants that "could have toxic levels of nitrates" if fed to chickens.  However almost all of those plants I have fed to my chickens and so far I've never had my birds keel over from the toxic effects since they are allowed a varied diet because they are more or less free range and I've never locked them in a coop with only one type of plant to eat.

 

Similar situation with plants.  If you were to grow "hydroponically" and have an imbalanced nutrient mix that was too high in certain nutrients and lacking in others, you will likely get problems with the plants.  However, I'm not sure where the idea that plants that grow well and are healthy could contribute too much of an unhealthy level of nitrates to a diet unless some one is eating a very imbalanced diet.  My understanding is the "bad" nitrates for us usually come from meat preservatives not from our lettuce.