By cross-referencing the two data sets - the compounds in food and the ones that have health benefits - the Barabási Lab can make an educated guess about what proteins Harper’s team should focus on for its diabetes basil. ![]() That’s a compound found in broccoli, cabbage, and kale. A study from the Francis Crick Institute, for example, found that the compound indole-3-carbinol may protect against certain kinds of cancer. The other piece is data mining literature around the health effects of chemical compounds found in these foods. For now, researchers are gathering data from institutions such as the Alberta Food Composition Database, the source for garlic’s 2,078 compounds. The lab applied for a grant to get funding to travel to the 50 states and perform mass spectrometry on a plant, perhaps garlic or basil, from local farmers in each one. “There is a huge difference between the Canadian carrot and a carrot in California and a carrot in South Africa, because there are different chemicals in the soil, different pesticides,” Ruppert said.īoil one Canadian carrot and bake another, and those end up different. What the lab needs is a giant database of food, broken down to the elements. They haven’t been quantified, so it’s unclear how the human body metabolizes them and what effects they have on health. Those missing amino acids and nutrients are what Peter Ruppert, a consultant at the Barabási Lab, calls the dark matter of nutrition. “There is a huge difference between the Canadian carrot and a carrot in California.” The famed botanist wasn’t concerned about invasive species overtaking native ones, but it is something Harper is aware of. In the 1760s, Carl Linnaeus took the exact opposite approach, trying to grow tea plants in his native Sweden, so the country wouldn’t have to import it from China any longer. Instead of trying to make snow peas thrive in a cabbage climate, farmers would know which crops would do best in their neck of the woods with least amount of resources. It’s an idea he calls climate prospecting. The area of the world with a matching climate might be a place that’s never grown hazelnut trees before, he said. “Could we look at the corn belt and say, instead of all corn, which may or may not be good for nutrition and for other things, could we see it as 3,000 individual microclimates?” Harper said.īy controlling climate variables such as carbon dioxide, air temperature, humidity, and many others, OpenAG's Personal Food Computer allows you to fine-tune and manipulate the conditions to find out what makes the best-tasting, most nutritious plant. In the cube, he’ll recreate 30 different climates, seeing how the trees grow and produce the highest-quality hazelnuts that are not only tasty but use the least amount of water, fertilizer, and pesticide. For Ferrero, maker of Nutella, he created a tree computer. “Could we see the corn belt as 3,000 individual microclimates?”Ĭompanies such as Ferrero and Target sponsor Harper’s research. The Personal Food Computer, on the contrary, is meant to be tinkered with. The manufacturers have dialed in the parameters for growing strawberries or basil. However, these devices are meant to grow a small amount of food with virtually no input from the owner. There are commercial smart gardens on the market, such as the Click and Grow or the GroBox. Harper and his fellow nerd farmers, as he calls them, experiment with different ways to grow basil or a head of lettuce and then share the results. The boxes are outfitted with sensors, cameras, and circuit boards. Four years later, Harper has created the Personal Food Computer to help control all aspects of climate in a cubic foot of space. ![]() Starting in 2014 with a couple of Dixie cups for his plants, he tried to learn the basic mechanics of what makes them grow better. With his background in architecture, Harper may not seem like the most obvious choice for the role of food system shaker-upper. “Growing for nutrition and growing for flavor, it’s not really something anyone does,” he told Digital Trends at the recent ReThink Food conference in Napa, California. “The plant doesn’t care if tastes good”.
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