People are sometimes concerned that produce or food grown with hydroponic methods may not be healthy like food grown from conventional farming or gardening. It is often common to find people asking questions like “are hydroponic tomatoes safe?” or “are greenhouse vegetables good for you?”
It is okay to ask these questions especially if you are not sure and you want to get real answers. After all, you need to know what you are eating and if there’s any risk related to it. Let’s look at what some scientific experiments and studies have found out about food produce that is grown hydroponically.
Is Hydroponics Healthy? Results of Scientific Studies and Experiments
Scientists at the University of Nevada performed an experiment to compare lettuces that were separately grown hydroponically, conventionally as well as organically to see if there are any differences between them.
The findings of the experiment showed that there were no differences in taste, odor, visual qualities and texture of these lettuces that were grown by different methods.
Another study from the same university compared hydroponic strawberries and raspberries to soil-grown strawberries and raspberries. The findings showed that hydroponic grown strawberries and raspberries produced a higher yield with equal or better nutritional quality and taste when compared to soil-grown strawberries and raspberries.
How Hydroponic Methods Influence Plant Nutritional Status
Besides the results from scientific studies, it is important to understand the various factors that may affect the quality of produce or food that is grown by either hydroponics or conventional farming. Some of these include:
Bioavailability: This can be described in simple terms as the amount of nutrients in food that is absorbed and utilized by the body. There are a number of research documentation that show that hydroponically grown plants and produce often have the same or higher amount of nutrients as soil grown plants.
Organic Labeling: There’s a lot of debates about whether hydroponically grown produce or crops can be labeled as organic or not. This tend to affect how some people perceive or classify hydroponic produce. Many people who consume only organic produce tend to classify any other thing that is not organic as unhealthy for them. While on the other hand, people who consume any kind of produce (whether it is organic or not) may not really care if hydroponic produce is healthy or not.
Whether you consider hydroponically grown food to be organic or not, you should know that it contains the nutrients that your body needs to grow well and it may be as good as food that is labeled organic.
Food Safety: Another factor that may determine whether food that is grown hydroponically can be considered healthy is the handling of that food right from harvest to storage and from packaging all through delivery to grocery stores. There are specific guidelines on food handling that tend to guarantee food safety. The safety of hydroponic produce (and any other produce) can be at risk if any of these guidelines are neglected or compromised at any point.
Hence, rather than assuming or wondering if hydroponically grown food is healthy for consumption just because it is produce by hydroponic methods; a better way to make that assessment should be to consider the food safety practices that were used in producing that food and bringing it to you.
Taste: Some people tend to make their judgements about whether or not hydroponically grown food is healthy based on the taste of the hydroponic produce. This can be a misleading criteria to use for this purpose because several factors can affect your sense of taste and taste can be very subjective. What tastes nice to you may not taste the same to another person, and taste by itself may not be great indicator for how healthy food is.
Other factors: Another important factor that you need to understand is that there are variations in nutrient content for different produce irrespective of the methods used in growing them. These differences can be as a result of differences in plant species, time of the year when it is harvested, post-harvest processing and storage, etc. All of these will affect things like taste, nutrient content etc. Hence, it may not be logical to determine the health status of hydroponic produce by criteria such as taste, visual appeal etc. since these outcomes are not unique to hydroponic produce alone and a real determinant of healthy food.
Based on available evidence and results from scientific studies it is evident that there is no distinct difference between the quality of hydroponic food or produce and soil grown food or produce. Hydroponically grown food is just as healthy as soil grown food and food grown with hydroponic methods can even be healthier or superior since you can measure and add the required nutrient measures to the solution and fortify your produce with desired nutrients.
Also, it is important for all the other factors and guidelines especially on food safety to be considered so that you can produce and deliver hydroponically grown food that is very nutritious and healthy for consumption.