Welcome to Aquaponics and You

Welcome to Aquaponics

The idea Aquaponics- commercial aquaponics

Welcome to Aquaponics and You, the place to come to learn all about the amazing science of aquaponics. If you are new to aquaponics, here are 5 reasons why having an aquaponics garden is a good idea, just to help you decide if aquaponics is right for you.
Aquaponics is a cost-effective method of gardening. Once established, there are few ongoing costs and very little by way of time commitment. You don’t need any special tools or fertilizers or mulches. There is no time-consuming digging, weeding or watering. All you need are a fish tank, netting pots for the plants, a couple of pumps and plastic tubing for reticulating the water. Fish food and replacement plants are the main expenses once you’ve got all the gear for the aquaponics system. A few minutes for daily maintenance is all the time you need to make it work. An aquaponics system is simple and easy to run. You don’t need any special skills to get it set up or to make it work for you. Once you understand the science behind it and have it all set up, it virtually runs itself in a closed system. It can be located anywhere in your yard or inside your house, as long as there is sufficient light and some protection from the weather. You can produce a wide variety of food in a small space, with very little effort. Many different vegetables and herbs can be grown in an aquaponics garden, providing you with fresh organic produce for your table. No more carrying home weeks-old produce from the supermarket; just go out to your aquaponics garden and pick what you need for dinner. The aquaponics fish you keep in your system can be ornamental or grown for food, giving you the added opportunity to have access to the freshest, cleanest fish available. This combination provides one of the most nutritious meals there is. Having an aquaponics garden will save you money because you will be producing some of your food at home. Most people find that they have paid for their initial investment in the system in a year and after that, your home-grown produce is almost free. The food you grow in an aquaponics garden is truly organic and therefore high in nutritional properties. No chemicals are needed in this type of garden and so the food you grow is completely free of toxic substances. Scientific research has shown that organically-grown food contains much higher levels of vitamins and minerals than food grown using chemicals. The food you grow will be as healthy as it gets. Hopefully these 5 reasons for having an aquaponics garden will have helped you understand the wonderful advantages of growing your own food at home with this simple system.

More than 100 Cities Sign Urban Food Policy Pact Pledge to Fight Hunger

Mayors gathered in Milan to sign pact

Cities will be vital in accomplishing the goal of feeding the world; around 15 percent of the world’s food is now grown in urban areas, and the global proportion of people living in cities will likely reach 65 percent by 2025. The Urban Food Policy Pact (UFPP) will unite city leaders worldwide for the creation of more just and sustainable urban food systems. The pact will address the potential of cities to contribute to food security through urban agriculture.  -Text of UFPP

On  World Food Day 2015, representatives from more than 100 cities signed the Urban Food Policy Pact, pledging to work together on efforts to develop sustainable food policies. The document was presented to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a ceremony in Milan, Italy. The project, led by the city of Milan, is modeled after an initiative that the Italian city created in 2014 with the assistance of Fundazione Caprilo. The objective is very simple: coordinate all policies dealing with food policy from a host of different perspectives: community, welfare, education, environment, well-being and international relations.

Milan Mayor Giuliano Pisapa proposed the pact at the Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) Summit in 2014, and the agreement was launched during the Milan Expo 2015, whose theme was “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.”

“Today, at  the presence of metropolises from all over the world that are home  to 400 million people, we have achieved an ambitious goal: a commitment for the implementation of smart food policies in our cities," said Pisapia. "This strong commitment entails concrete actions at the local level, aimed at facing global emergencies such as hunger, malnutrition and 1,3 million tons of food wasted every year."

Five cities in the United States and two in Canada are party to this agreement:  Chicago, New York, Miami, Baltimore, San Francisco, Vancouver and Toronto. Our neighbors in Latin America include  Mexico City, Guatemala City (Guatemala), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Bogota and Medellin (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo, and Porto Alegre (Brazil). New York City announced its support for the pact on Twitter.

#NYC signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact ! Follow the ceremony live: http://t.co/KMRTIO2iap #UrbanFoodPact @ComuneMi

— NYC Intl Affairs (@globalnyc) October 15, 2015

The pact includes five core actions:

1. engage with relevant stakeholders to ensure an enabling environment; 
2. promote sustainable diets and nutrition; 
3. ensure equitable access to food; 
4. promote rural-urban food production and supply; and 
5. reduce food waste.

José Graziano da Silva, director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), praised the agreement, pointing out that  urban communities would play a significant role in achieving the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, especially the eradication of hunger by 2030. Read more from Inter Press Service and Xinhua. Here is how the FAO tweeted its support for the pact.

#UNFAO hails pledge by more than 100 cities 2fight hunger & improve nutrition http://t.co/fCM4KnNVU7 #UrbanFoodPact pic.twitter.com/yiUgpVc9Wv

— FAO Newsroom (@FAOnews) October 15, 2015

While Urban Food Policy Pact currently has a little more than 100 signators, the model is applicable to cities of all sizes. According to StatisticBrain, using datafrom World Atlas, there were 4,416 cities in the world with a population of over 150,000, including Albuquerque. Imagine if every single one of these cities decided to adopt the UFPP principles.

The Porky Fish Clone

Researchers say they have created cloned piglets that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, the oil that is prized as being beneficial to the heart.

A team led by Yifan Dai of the University of Pittsburghs School of Medicine transferred into foetal pig cells a gene called fat-1 that had been identified in a well-studied lab animal, a tiny worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans. A worm that fish eat. The story is here

My Thoughts:

Creating transgenic hogs in an attempt to mimic the potential nutrition benefits of fish, somehow makes me think that science is ready to go a long way in creating the ultimate balanced diet in a "canned" food clone!

My mother told me to eat fish as part of a good diet! If she wanted me to eat pork alone she would have said so.

Why do we need to "clone" to create healthy food?

In order to help justify this work, it has also been suggested that fish are being over-harvested so we need to clone and change other animals to subsitute for fish?

HUH? Why not take a real hard look at practicing more fish farming using an eco-friendly manner, and forget about changing animals to be something that they are not! I can agree with the statement that wild fish stocks have been over harvested. Ancient people have farmed fish for thousands of years and in doing so, they created more supply by growing fish, not a changed animal. What is Aquaculture

In 2002, Prathers team created pigs designed to produce organs that were more suitable for transplantation into humans.

Missile Nog

Its interesting to us how many of our Christmas traditions center around the simple task of decorating the Christmas tree.  Listening to the Grinch song on repeat until Katie cant stand it and turns on Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Jake hanging the hideous homemade ornaments from his childhood front and center on the Christmas tree (one is a matte gray-painted styrofoam ball with colorful snowflake-shaped sequins sporadically glued to it, affectionately named the Death Star), Katie discreetly moving those same ornaments to the lower back portion of the tree before visitors stop by, and, of course, drinking eggnog.  For an occasion such as this, there must be eggnog!

"What should we do to make this eggnog unique?" Jake asked Katie

"Theres no need to--its December and people are already drinking regular eggnog for Christmas," said Katie

"But, but..." Jake protested

"Just make some regular old eggnog so we can decorate the tree!" Katie interjected.

So here we present, somewhat dejectedly, a standard recipe for making normal eggnog.  But wait!  What if its served under mistletoe?  Then it could be missile nog!  Ok, that works.  To give full credit, everything but the pasteurization step comes straight from sister-in-law Julia.  Thanks, Julia!

Start with 3 cups a milking and 12 eggs-a-yolking.  Beat the egg yolks until thick and light yellow, then mix in the milk.

Heat to 160 °F to kill any salmonella-a-lurking.

Mix in one cup-a-sugaring and another 3 cups-a-milking.  Cool to one room-a-temperaturing.

Pour into eight cups-a-waiting and garnish with two pinches-a-nutmegging and two pinches-a-cinnamoning.

Make sure Katie has to go under the mistletoe to get hers.  Then surprise her like a heat-seeking missile with a smooch! (And you thought missile nog was a stretch...)

Make sure to enjoy at least one glass each while decorating a Christmas tree.  Or a Hanukkah bush.  Or a Kwanzaa shrub.  Or whatever youre into.

The recipe:
12 egg yolks
6 cups milk, divided into two batches of three cups
1 cup sugar
2 pinches nutmeg per glass
2 pinches cinnamon per glass

Beat egg yolks until thick and yellow, then mix in 3 cups milk.  Heat until 160 °F, mix in sugar and then remaining milk.  Cool to room temp (or colder), pour into glasses, and garnish with nutmeg and cinnamon.


What are your tree-decorating traditions?  How many of them involve eggnog?  Let us know in the comments section below!

Second Sunday of Advent A Growing Inner Stillness

Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Advent does not lead to nervous tension stemming from expectation of something spectacular about to happen. 

On the contrary, it leads to a growing inner stillness and joy allowing me to realize that he for whom I am waiting has already arrived and speaks to me in the silence of my heart. 

Just as a mother feels the child grow in her and is not surprised on the day of the birth, but joyfully receives the one she learned to know during her waiting, so Jesus can be born in my life slowly and steadily and be received as the one I learned to know while waiting.  - Henri J.M. Nouwen

Nice Sliced Lunchmeat!

Almost a year ago, we noted that one thing we wanted to learn how to make was additive-free lunch meat.  A bit of bumming around YouTube turned up several examples, but most featured involved processes that looked like they produced delicious results while entailing enough labor to lose our interest.  However, two videos were particularly useful for us.

The first showed us how lunch meat is made industrially, which we may try to approximate on a home scale some day.  Its not as involved as we expected, basically comprising three steps: beating the heck out of some raw meat, sticking the beaten pieces together to form a nice round shape and holding them in place with some type of casing, then cooking them in a well-controlled oven.

The second showed us how to make a passable--yet still slice-able--substitute from leftover roast chicken, which involves blending up leftover roast chicken, mixing in extra seasonings and gelatin, forming into a loaf, and chilling in the fridge.  Mrs. Volfie noted that the gelatin wasnt necessary if the roasting liquid was retained--during roasting the collagen in the chickens connective tissues breaks down into gelatin, which ends up in the roasting liquid at the bottom of the pan.  In fact, itll cause the liquid to gel up if it goes in the fridge, provided the chicken was roasted long enough to break down the collagen (and the chicken had enough collagen to begin with).

So, we wanted to try it without adding gelatin to see if we could get a nice firm set and something to slice for our sandwiches.

We started with some leftover chicken chunks and their cooking liquid.  The liquid is currently gelled, which is a good sign.

Then we put everything in the food processor...

...and blended it up almost to the consistency of a chicken salad spread.  We added a few pinches of salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Then we carefully sculpted it into a loaf.  In retrospect, we should have made the loaf shorter and taller.  Now it looks kind of like a nugget.  The nugget/loaf went in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, we tried slicing it...and it worked!  Its definitely more fragile than the pieces Mrs. Volfie was able to shake like a Polaroid picture, but it holds together good enough for the sandwiches we eat!

Look at that nice row of cold cuts!

It doesnt cut as well with a regular knife as it does with the slicer, and neither the knife nor the slicer do a good job when the loaf warms up.  So heads up, if you try to cut it at room temp, you might end up eating a chicken salad sandwich anyway.  It might hold together better if we cooked the chicken longer or boiled the liquid down with the bones, etc. still in it.  But we were in the process of making biochar, so our starting material didnt get as much attention as it maybe should have.

The sliced meat is now an integral part of our soon-to-be-famous alliteration sandwich (chicken, chard, and cheddar).  Jake might just have to consider expanding his lunch repertoire beyond PB&J!

Have you made slice-able lunch meat before?  Whats your favorite method?  Let us know in the comments section below!

Wishes for an Abundant New Year

As the pages of the calendar turn to a new year our tendency is to wish our friends and family a Happy New Year.  And if you are in Latin America and other places around the world, the wish is for a Prosperous New Year.  Happiness and prosperity are good things to wish for our relatives, friends and acquaintances. The symbolic transition, however, gives us a great opportunity to make an alternative kind of wish: an Abundant New Year. On this day we celebrate Gods abundant love for us (Isaiah 49:15-16 and Jeremiah 31:3) and we resolve to share this abundant love with others (John 15: 9-14)

So, as 2016 begins, I wish everyone Gods abundant love in our hearts, our minds to guide us as we live our lives in the coming year.