BRB w/ Nathan P – Vertical Farming, Blueberry Chia Pudding & Where the Crawdads Sing
Growing food vertically outside of soil, a fruity & protein-rich breakfast, and a tale of romance and ecology (#20).
Hi all,
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P — a weekly newsletter featuring 💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate.
Before we get started, here are some highlights of food & climate in the news this week:
US announces $46 million in funds to eight nuclear fusion companies (Reuters). I still believe nuclear fission is a safe and proven means to power the world — but hopefully this fusion thing works out, too.
Earth’s health failing in seven out of eight key measures, say scientists (The Guardian). Many “points of no return” for climate are near — the window to act is getting slimmer.
💥 Breakthrough: Vertical Farming
Enjoy butter lettuce and cucumbers? If you live in a city like NYC, odds are they may be grown in a greenhouse.
Now there’s a new urban farming on the block: vertical farms. Vertical farms are not greenhouses, and instead optimize plant growth indoors through stacking and artificial lighting. There are many arguments for them:
🌱 Fast and reliable plant growth
🌾 Consistent yield and flavor
🏡 Less space needed per crop, ideal for urban areas
🦠 Lower risk for dangerous microbes like E.coli
💧 Lower water usage
At a high-level, here is how they work:
Land use is maximized by stacking shelves of planting mediums.
The plants are often grown hydroponically (in water instead of soil) with their roots soaking up a special nutrient solution.
Each stack illuminates the plants below, and the light source can stimulate faster growth cycles and targeted flavor profiles.
Temperature and humidity control through ventilation ensure the right conditions for plant growth.
Let me split my thoughts on vertical farms in two sections: 🌎 environmental impact and 🥬 food health.
🌎 Environmental Impact
There is a case for growing food that is local, highly perishable, and exotic in vertical farms. Microgreens for high-end restaurants is a perfect example.
Vertical farming has a better footprint than conventional farming in some aspects, and a worse ones in others.
💧 On the one hand, they use less water: 70 to 80% less water than conventional farming. Aeroponic farming, in which roots grow in air attached to mesh made from recycled plastic bottles, cuts that down another 40%.
⚡️ On the other hand, they use more electricity to for lighting, cooling, and ventilation. We would need 8X the electricity currently produced in the US if we were to produce all of our food in vertical farms (Perez, 2014). We’re trading some problems for others.
I advocate scaling responsible agriculture over vertical farms, especially where land and water availability is less constrained. Certain forms of agriculture — like regenerative farming with resilient polycultures — can not only lead to fewer pests, higher biodiversity, and high carbon removal, but also to more nutrient dense foods.
🥬 Food Nutrition
As far as the food quality is concerned, I am skeptical foods grown without soil can be as just as nutritious and healthy. So is Liz Carlisle, agroecologist from UCSB and author of Lentil Underground.
“It’s unimaginable to me that all of the benefits [of farming] could be replicated in a soil-less environment. We have yet to grasp the connection of microbial quality from the soil, and the plant to our [own] gut.”
Part of what makes vegetables so healthy is the nutrients and chemical signals they obtain from their environment. When plants defend themselves against pests, they produce defensive compounds like polyphenols and antioxidants. If you’ve heard those are healthy, you would be right. When we eat plants with these compounds, they activate our own bodies’ defense mechanisms.
This only happens when plants are subjected to some degree of hardship — which indoor vertical farms aim to prevent.
“Might vertical farms be the white bread of the twenty-first century?” Carlisle asks. “And we’ll say, ‘Oops, we left out something really important.’ ”
It is pretentious to think humans can grow plants better than nature’s 4 billion years of R&D. And it is naive to think that we can eliminate our reliance on soil entirely. We have plenty of soil to grow enough food for everyone — we are just misallocating the crops we grow, mistreating the soil, and forcing it to grow unnatural monocultures.
Vertical farming certainly has its applications and appeal, and can complement soil-based farming in urban areas. They could even work in space. But I wouldn’t want or expect most of our produce to come from these farms.
🥘 Recipe: Blueberry Chia Pudding
Ever rushing out the door in the morning? Take this fruity and protein-rich breakfast to go. It’ll only take you 5 minutes the night before.
If you’ve made chia pudding before, you know it’s easy to put in too much or too few chia seeds — throwing off the texture. Not this time.
Enjoy this treat on-the-go and you’ll thank me later.
If you make it, send pictures :)
📚 Book: Where the Crawdads Sing
Don’t judge a book by its movie.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is no exception. It’s a fiction read that spans crime, romance, and ecology through the young adulthood of Kya Clark, a young girl abandoned in the North Carolina marshes.
One day, the town’s beloved former high school quarterback is found dead, and Kya is suspected of his murder. The intrigue will keep you flipping pages — and learning more about marsh ecology through Kya’s eyes.
The writing is honest, raw, and poetic, and it’s hard to put down. I get why it sold the most copies of any adult book in 2019.
If you haven’t watched the movie, read this first. And if you have, re-read the first line of this section.
Some quotes as food for thought:
Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.
Female fireflies draw in strange males with dishonest signals and eat them; mantis females devour their own mates. Female insects, Kya thought, know how to deal with their lovers.
It was the land who caught her. Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.
Thank you for reading - BRB next week ✌️
🥘 Recipe: Blueberry Chia Pudding
Ingredients (2-3 servings)
1 cup frozen organic blueberries
1 cup oat or almond milk
1 tbsp maple syrup
3/8 cup chia seeds
1 cup yogurt (Siggi’s coconut yogurt is a good plant-based option) + extra for garnish
Instructions (5 mins)
Blend blueberries, milk, and maple syrup in blender until smooth.
Pour into sealable containers for one portion. Add in the chia seeds and mix.
Top with some yogurt, a drizzle of maple syrup, and whole blueberries.
Refrigerate overnight and enjoy :)
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier — I’m an avid reader, food enthusiast, and climate optimist. I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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