Hello all
I have recently started looking into more nutrient dense foods, and have found out a lot of information about how depleted our soils are.
Does anyone know how to increase the nutrients in the soil to in turn increase the nutrients in our home grown food?
Replies
Make compost and add it to your soil.
Regards
Hi Peter,
no not at all, what you are measuring is the brix of the SAP, the brix charts were developed for plant sap. Breeding programs aim to increase sugars into the end products, super sweet corn is a good example. Measuring brix in the sap of these super sweet corn plants often finds brix as low as 2.
Hope that helps,
Nicole
Now that's the first thing which makes sense to me. Thank you for that. It seems not many people know that.
Cheers
Peter
Hi,
highly recommend Francis Chaboussou's book "Healthy Crops" for an investigation into what makes plants more susceptible to insect and disease.
As for why brix, increase in sugars = increase in nutrient density. I remember this back in 5th form science; EVERYTHING in the plant starts with photosynthesis, and the basic building block is sugar/glucose. This sugar is then converted into fats, proteins, more complex carbohydrates, starch etc. So a simple tool like brix gives you a great indicator. There has been abit of work done in the US (high brix gardens), which shows the correlation between high brix and different minerals, and hopefully this will form the basis of a Masters Degree for me in future.
There are conditions that will artificially push up brix- ie stress. So brix really is a good tool for farmers/growers to monitor the effect of their fertiliser/soil programmes when seen as part of the bigger picture.
See www.biologicalfarmers.co.nz for more information on biological farming in NZ.
or my website www.integritysoils.co.nz
hope that helps,
cheers
Nicole
That means 100 gms of Strawberries are way more healthy and give us more nutrition than 100gms of Spinach? Strawberries have much higher brix readings than spinach, right?
Cheers
Peter
HI
These might help -
http://www.highbrixgardens.com/pdf/brix-chart.pdf
http://www.highbrixgardens.com/what-is-brix.html
http://www.highbrixgardens.com/food-quality-and-digestion.html
I had some reserach papers I got off Google scholar years ago , explaining it all but this is all I can find in a glance.
Angie
Can someone please enlighten me? I don't understand this concept. I mean I do understand the term nutrition dense. But I don't understand the relationship to Brix values. Brix is used to measure the sugar content in fruit i.e. grapes. 1 Brix is the equivalent of 1 gram sucrose in 100grams of liquid. How can we make the link between high sugar content and nutrition dense? And how can we generalise this? How can we say that food (!!!) is nutrition dense if it is high in sugars?
Cheers
Peter
Hi Peter
The best explaination that I've come across comes from the ag.usa.net site
Brix – A unit of measure used in the refractometer. When the Brix reading is divided by 2 it will be equal to the percent of crude sucrose in the plant tissue.
Refractometer – A device used to measure the refractive index of plant juices in order to determine the mineral/sugar ratio of the plant cell protoplasm.
Refractive Index of Crop juices are calibrated in percent sucrose or degree Brix.
During the growing season it is possible to check a plant for percent sucrose. A refractometer is easy to use. You will need something like a garlic squeezer for juicing the plant sample. To make a reading, place 2 to 3 drops of the liquid sample on the prism surface, close the cover and point toward any light source. Focus the eyepiece by turning the ring to the right or left. Locate the point on the graduated scale where the light and dark field meet. Read the percent sucrose (solid content on the scale).
The refractometer measures in units called Brix. The Brix equals to percent crude carbohydrate per 100 pounds of juice. The higher the carbohydrate in the plant juice the higher the mineral content of the plant, the oil content of the plant, and the protein quality of the plant.
For example, if you were to have 100 pounds of alfalfa that has a Brix reading of 15 it would mean that there would be 15 pounds of crude carbohydrates if the alfalfa was juiced and dried to 0 percent moisture. By dividing 15 by 2 it tells us that the actual amount of simple sugar would be equal to 7.5 pounds.
Crops with higher refractive index will have a higher sugar content, higher protein content, higher mineral content and a greater specific gravity or density. This adds up to a sweeter tasting, more mineral nutritious feed with lower nitrates and water content and better storage attributes.
Crops with higher Brix will produce more alcohol from fermented sugars and be more resistant to insects, thus resulting in decreased insecticide usage. For insect resistance, maintain a Brix of 12 or higher in the juice of the leaves of most plants. Crops with a higher solids content will have a lower freezing point and therefore be less prone to frost damage.
I have started using the enviro fert fertalisers, having done a soil test, and realise that our beautiful soil needs a lot of work. However as our block is a long term project, I'm confident that we'll get there. The important thing to remember is that you test the Leaf not just the fruit, which will always hold more sugar, eg. strawberries.
Thank you for your reply. But this is what is confusing me:
Brix is a measurement of sucrose, nothing else. Somewhere and someone made a link between high sucrose levels and nutrition. And I can't find any research which is confirming this. Because to me it would mean that for example 100gms of Strawberries (high in sucrose) would have way more nutrition than 100gms of Spinach (lower in sucrose). Or do I miss something here? Basically what the Nutrition Dense food movement suggests to me is eat food with higher levels of sugars. Of course not refined sugars. But you know what I mean.
Please this is not about criticism or talking down nutrition dense food etc. But I just try to understand a concept before I take it on board. And so far I have more questions than answers.
And sorry, but this here to me doesn't make any sense at all:
As far as I know there is no fermentation process (Yeast plus Sugar? Where does the yeast come from?) in a plant. Again, is there any research? I have a background in botanics and I can assure you, plants are not little distilleries and produce alcohol. Wouldn't that be nice? One reason why this is just not right is that the fermentation process would produce carbon-dioxide and this for example would add to our climate problems we already have.
Cheers
Peter
Hi Peter
I'm no botanist, and just learning about this.
What you are saying about the yeast seems unusual though - yeasts are all around us, it's what makes my sourdough bread do it's thing. Natural yeasts are all over ripe fruits, being attracted to the sugars in the fruits as a natural phenomenon. Whether you call it the bloom on grapes, or the dust on apples, it's still just natural yeasts.
I was advised to get a book called "Nourishment Home Grown" which has more information about how higher brix readings positively affect the nourishment of your food. I have the book, but have not had much of a chance to read it yet.
Cheers
T
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