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Fujitsu harvests low-potassium lettuce grown in semiconductor plant
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y agoFor those unaware, Yen has no subdivisions, so think of ¥1 as 1¢ or 1p, and ¥100 as $1/€1/£1.
- ghshephard 12y agoI read through the article a couple times - anybody figure out why they are growing lettuce in a clean room?
- pirateking 12y agoThe article only mentioned kidney disease, low potassium dietary restrictions, that the factory vegetable industry is going to grow, and that kids like factory lettuce better. No other details on motivations for getting into the factory vegetable business. The article makes it seem like the reason was just because they had the clean room facilities and they could - so why not?
- jonsen 12y agoNo pesticide is used and because the lettuce is produced in a clean room, it stays fresh for about two weeks when stored at 10 degrees Celsius or lower.
- ghshephard 12y agoMore detail here: http://global.ofweek.com/news/Japan-s-chip-fabs-turn-to-growing-lettuce-12257 http://global.ofweek.com/news/Japan-s-chip-fabs-turn-to-grow... Fujitsu Semiconductor and Toshiba Corp have both started to grow greens and believe the tightly-controlled conditions produce superior plants that can be tuned in terms of trace elements and therefore for taste or for specialized diets to meet health-care needs.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7749595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7749595 They grow that stuff for people with kidney problems, they have to follow a diet that is low in potassium.
- walshemj 12y agoIndeed we do - though my advice from the renal dieticians didn't mention lettuce - will have to ask at my next checkup. Ironically when I aske about the lo-salt versions of things like soy sauce she commented no the crap they put in to replace salt is worse :-)
- avitous 12y agoOften what is used to 'replace' salt is potassium chloride, which would be dangerous for those with kidney issues. I take a popular medication for high blood pressure control, lisinopril, which can interfere with potassium elimination by the kidneys so I have to be careful with it myself. I haven't needed to avoid potassium-rich foods which contain it naturally (periodic testing of potassium serum levels confirms this), but artificial supplementation with potassium chloride can be especially dangerous; V-8 vegetable juice is an excellent example: it's processed so heavily during production that nutrient are destroyed, so supplements are added, including enough potassium chloride to bring potassium levels to > 700mg in a 6 oz serving, so it's best avoided.
- seandougall 12y agoI've been seeing nephrologists (some of the best in the country) for almost a decade, and none of them has ever been remotely useful in planning out a diet. Neither have the nutritionists they've sent me to. They all know lots about nutrition, but they don't know anything about food. They also get really cagey/evasive when you try to ask for quantifiable guidelines -- like "tell me how many milligrams of potassium to stay under per day". And don't get me started on hospital food. (Short version: my "renal diet" at Cedars Sinai was just half-portions of the regular diet -- including half a banana, and a 4-oz container of orange juice. No joke.) Watching serving sizes is the trick, because "suggested" serving sizes are usually totally unrealistic. People will tell you to avoid spinach like the plague because they're used to thinking of it as a crapton of leaves boiled down to a few spoonfuls. But they might make you so paranoid that you avoid a sandwich that has three leaves of fresh spinach on it, despite the fact that there's more potassium in the bread! And conversely, they might not mention potatoes, because the suggested serving size is so small, but you'll get a ton of potassium if you eat a giant plate of french fries (potato skins even more so). Some things nobody told me: 1) A baked potato has twice as much potassium as a banana. 2) So does an avocado. 3) Some fancy grains, like quinoa, are reasonably high in potassium. 4) Foods claiming to be "a good source of potassium" aren't always the most potassium-rich; that's just marketing, and tells you more about the calories per unit potassium than it does about the potassium per serving. 5) The USDA nutritional database is one of the most useful things our government has ever done: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
- arbuge 12y agoPerhaps farmers could follow in the footsteps of semiconductor design companies and go fabless if this trend establishes itself...
- lifeformed 12y agoHow does the potassium get reduced by being grown in a clean room?
- MrBuddyCasino 12y agoIts in the article, but somewhat hidden: "No pesticide is used and because the lettuce is produced in a clean room, it stays fresh for about two weeks when stored at 10 degrees Celsius or lower." They don't need to use pesticides because of the clean room, which in turn makes for lower potassium content in the lettuce.
- mikegreen 12y agoThis is deducing that pesticides increase potassium uptake and storage in the lettuce which is not true. You can, however, use lower potassium levels for plants that will not be subject to disease or bug stress. But there is not a direct relationship here.
- VLM 12y agoThat's whats implied in the article, and it may be true, or a part of the truth, aside from that, from growing up with my gentleman farmer uncle, I know low K results in weak stems/leaves. This was often a problem with his popcorn field (yes there are specific breeds of corn for popcorn its not just generic corn, although he also grew sweetcorn for picnics and stuff... he was a popular guy) Those lettuce plants would probably blow flat if you breathed on them hard, much less put them out in the wind. I would predict low-K lettuce is significantly less crunchy that normal lettuce.
- ars 12y ago> it stays fresh for about two weeks That's hardly special. I've stored lettuce that I bought commercially for 4 weeks and it was fine. So that's 4 weeks plus however long it took to get to me. (I bought too much by mistake.)
- chc 12y agoWas that at 10°C or higher?
- iwwr 12y agoThis pushes home the idea that to have food you essentially need energy. If electricity were abundant enough it could even make sense to grow vegetables close to people in cities, perhaps in the same buildings.
- jerf 12y agoIt's almost all energy... food, electricity, clean water, a lot of recycling options, even hydrocarbons could be synthesized from atmospheric carbon if you have cheap enough energy. The only exception is atoms, and even for many of those, if energy was cheap enough, we can just go get some more of the desirable atoms, like the rare earths, from space. Civilization is ultimately all about the energy.
- Zigurd 12y agoI recall there were a couple fabs built in Colorado that are not on Wikipedia's page of currently operating fabs. Who wants to grow... lettuce?
- mutagen 12y agoWhat a great way to extend the usefulness of an obsolete foundry! I'm guessing that they're using hydroponics and carefully regulating the mineral supply to achieve the desired potassium levels.
- ChuckMcM 12y agoI find it more interesting that they are growing this lettuce in a completely artificial environment at scale. One step toward a closed loop habitat but at a potentially larger scale than simple aquaponics installations. I'm still waiting for a 'high rise' farm, basically a multi-story hydroponics installation which can produce more food per surface acre than an existing farm can. If you can master the pollination cycle and control pests through environmental controls you have the basis for a sort of 'super-organic' type of farm.
- mikegreen 12y agoGrowing more food per acre in an indoor hydroponic farm is a reality today. The problem is your romaine from that hydro farm down the road is $3.99, and from the traditional farm shipped across the country is $1.99. Lights are a big part of the equation. Most plants need 10+ hours of sunlight a day, so even if you put the plants on a rotisserie you still have to supplement with artificial light ($$$). The amount of water and land you save is immense, however, the water and land cost of putting a farm in an urban area counters that. Pollination is easy - bees. Even basement/garage growers will use bees to pollinate. That said, you don't need bees in this example as you never want lettuce (or any leafy green) to flower. You can control the flowering with reduced temp and different light temperatures, too. In tomato/pepper/fruiting plants, you'll need manual pollination or a beehive in your hydro-warehouse. Re: super-organic - Most hydroponic growing is not organic. By nature of adding nutrients (fertilizer, salts, ph adjustments) that replace what is found in soil means hydroponics is traditionally not organic. There are organic hydroponics going on (I am not aware of a large-scale one) and they are NOT clean nor bug free, given the nature of making organic nutrients (they smell like shit, really, as most are compost or something-rotting-based).
- VLM 12y agoI grow herbs in my house in a consumer grade hydro system (really, like basil and mint, and sometimes lettuce, not weed) and a big thing for the organic types is no herbicides and no pesticides and that is pretty trivial for indoor hydro.