Feasibility of Vertical Farming, a Farm2Table Ingredient Tracking App, and Preparing Venison Heart
Welcome back to my weekly review in which I share three interesting things I learned this week.
Could vertical farms become widespread?
Vertical farms are set up in urban buildings and could potentially become important in the future. A professor of ecology at Colombia university, Dick Despommier, came up with the idea and there are several of these farms around the world now. But this article was a very interesting one, because it covers research from Scientists in the Netherlands, who are trying to put some numbers on vertical farming. They are currently trying to calculate how feasible this farming method is and if it has potential to be part of the solution to meet the projected, growing food demand. The researchers hope that their findings can be used by stakeholders, investors and designers to make better decisions for future projects.
Tracking the ingredients.
What if there was an app that could provide full transparency into the food supply chain? Well, researchers at the University of Tokyo recently proposed a prototype app just like it. The idea is that this app could give us a way to see how ingredients are moving from farm to table. According to one of the researchers, Kaiyuan Lin,
“Our motivation was to design a food tracking system that is cheap for smallholder farmers, convenient for consumers, and can prevent food fraud".
The thing that really surprised me is that the app is all open-source software and a fully decentralized database, which they think will contribute to less central control in the food industry. Check out the full article here.
Ever wondered how to prepare a venison heart?
This awesome video from Meateater, Inc popped up on my Youtube feed, so I wanted to share it. I have prepared venison heart many times before, but it was interesting to see how others do it. I am sure this same process can be used on a cow heart. Just that the cow heart is much larger. So, if you ever buy one from a grocery store or butcher, you might find this video interesting.