Nutrient Dense food

[Robyn Wolfe]

I am starting on a whole new adventure with a refractometre.  I have measured a luscious leaf of silver beet and it came out Brix 4 to my chagrin...and I use chicken manure, lime, woodchips and grassclippings and all the rest of it.  So now I am out to sprinkle some magic dust and liquid and see what happens.

[Rachel Rose]

Hi Lisa. Good question, I'm trying to understand the answer too. It's been a long, long time since I studied chemistry and biology! Kay Baxter is writing a lot about it. Koanga has published a little booklet called "A Home Gardener's Guide to Growing Nutrient Dense Food", available from its website. In it, I found this explanation of the correlation between sugar and mineral density (higher mineral content meaning higher nutrient density):

Water and oxygen are brought together in the chloroplast during the heat of the day to make crude sugar. Phosphate is the catalyst for the process. The mineral elements carried in the phosphate are left behind when the sugar is formed. This is why the higher the sugar, the higher the mineral content.

I'm really interested in hearing more about this from people who can explain it and/or who have been tracking their Brix levels for a while.

 

[Lisa L]

so how does brix which measures sugar shows nutrient dense?