A tantalizing look into a future was presented by a recent article in the South China Morning Post entitled "Diners of the future will feast on 3D printed food and 'bespoke' cuisine". The article highlights the convergence of technology and food by creating a pop up experience entirely done by 3D printing, entirely meaning the cutlery, crockery, lights, chairs and food all came out of a printer, while the food is printed live in front of diners.

"A focus on nutrition is what most food experts see as one of the defining dining trends of the future. Dobrzensky even speaks of a time when every home will have a 3D printer, controlled via your phone: send it instructions so that dinner is on the table as you walk through the door, your meal containing the optimal balance of minerals, vitamins and protein based on the chemical analysis undertaken by your toilet that morning.
Tailoring what you eat to what you are has already begun. The present trend of “free from” – gluten free, lactose free, carb fee, and so on – is in its infancy. With personal health big data, and your own genetic information, now easily accessible, those with heart disease in the family, for example, can eat to minimise risk."

The article also highlights using a basic nutritional paste to feed into the printers. This plant based paste contains significant amounts of nutrients as needed and represents the ultimate "supplement" rather than pills or contemporary methods. We believe our Urbafresh line of foods represents another step above this idea as we are optimizing nutrition in micro plant forms to increase nutritional density. 

Upland cress is one of the most nutrient dense microgreens to be found. Microgreens by their nature are superior to the mature plant matter because of the exceptional concentration or nutrient density within the small structure of the microgreen. You can obtain anywhere from ​4 to 40 times the nutrient value by using these amazing plants.

Earlier information led us to coloration as one of the markers for powerful compounds called anthocyanins  that have shown positive effects on cardio vascular disease, cancer and can boost brain function. Further research has shown that you can enhance compounds in plants by exposing them to different wavelengths of light. We noted the effect of blue LED lights had on the tested vegetables.

We attempted to see if we could duplicate these results on our simple microgreen system here. Again, the last blog highlighted growing out our upland cress microgreens so we built a grow bench that provided our blue LED lighting to grow out our microgreens. The photos here show the results of growing out our cress for a six week period and using the blue lighting for the last two weeks on the tray on the right side. Notice the enhanced purplish color of the right tray. I do believe now that a final finishing grow under blue LEDs should enhance the nutritional compounds available in our microgreens.

*a version of this blog was previously posted on our microgreenfarm.co website

Our wheat sprouting activity led to uncovering a recipe for turning our sprouted wheat berries into a wonderful loaf of sprouted wheat bread. One of our suppliers, Sproutlady Rita from Sprouthouse shared with us this recipe and the photos here are the results of our experiment. 

BASIC SPROUT BREAD   Soak 1 cup of hard wheat for 8 - 10 hours. Sprout in the Hemp Sprouting Bag for 2 days, until the shoot is about the same length as the hard wheat berry. Grind the sprouts in a food processor, a Champion juicer, a wheatgrass juicer, or a cast iron meat grinder. The resulting “sprout dough” should be ground to a smooth paste. If necessary, grind twice. Form a 1 1/2” by 3” loaf by hand. Lay the loaf on a seeded cookie sheet. Sesame or poppy seeds will keep the bread from sticking. Bake at 250 F for approximately 2 ½ - 3 1/3 hours. Bread is done when the underside is firm. The inside will remain moist.