Nutritional Content?

[Steve Godfrey]

Hello community, 

I am getting started with a small setup in my garage and will be attending the conference in a couple of weeks to learn more about commercial opportunities in aquaponics. I just watched a great documentary about food and a comment was made about all the various nutrients and minerals found in healthy soil - the implication being that deficient soil leads to deficient plants.

From my reading of Sylvia's book, my understanding is that in a properly-operating system, I do not need to supplement anything - the fish and the bacteria and worms take care of it. (Please correct me if I missed a key point though!)

So, does anyone have any insight or data to share about the nutritional content of plants grown with aquaponics versus grown organically in soil? Does fish waste provide everything a plant needs to not only grow fast, but to also be highly nutritious? (e.g. the aquaponic strawberries look nice and grow fast, and are even delicious, but are lacking in vitamins, or something like that)

Have any studies been done to document this? Thanks in advance for any information anyone can provide!

Steve Godfrey

[Carey Ma]

No one but us foodies are interested in this kind of testing so not much has been done. Big business and Big Ag are not interested in showing how poor their fake foods really are.

Cheers

[George]

An organic VS conventionally grown study was a big news item recently, the link below being one example of hundreds of articles/videos on the subject.  The study did not, to my knowledge, delved into the obvious benefits of food grown with no pesticides.  At our house, we try to limit foods contaminated by hormones, antibiotics and pesticides.  I've never heard of an aquaponics VS other organically grown study but that would be really interesting to see.  Even though Silvia does not advocate adding anything to aquaponics, commercial growers have written that they do add things such as iron and magnesium. 

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-is-organic-food-b...

[Keith Rowan]

i know one aquaponic guy that's been doing brix tests (testing for sugar) on ap fruits and his early results show higher numbers than dirt grown fruit.. keep in mind that brix is only one measurement..

i've had some awfully bland veggies from the grocery store..