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Singapore Airlines is using aeroponics to upgrade in-flight meals
- ragebol 7y agoI was expecting the article to be about having aeroponics on the airplanes themselves. Would make the term 'aeroponics' even more apt.
- knodi123 7y agolol, there's a long list of reasons why that doesn't make sense, but I admit I had the same first thought
- animalnewbie 7y agoUnlike bill g (who thinks it's energy production and storage) I think food growing and delivery would be the next big thing. Imagine if we can make kitchens redundant. Nobody has a gym in their house. Kitchens should be equally rare.
- lm28469 7y agoGenuine question: why ? Seems like we're trying to optimise every single aspects of our lives to be "more productive/efficient" and we're throwing what makes life "life" with it. Cooking is good fun and the only way to control what's going in your body.
- animalnewbie 7y agoI am not suggesting that personal cooking or kitchens be abolished. I am only fantasizing, out of selfish interest, that the infrastructure around cooking is so developed that I can buy kitchen time and raw materials in required quantities at my local public kitchen and cook whatever I need, whenever. By the time I'm done cooking, the other portion of my meal will have been prepared by chefs elsewhere. You're free to make and clean and keep pest-free your own. Kitchen if you're so inclined. My fantasies haven't accounted for a kid yet I should confess .
- ben_w 7y ago> I can buy kitchen time and raw materials in required quantities at my local public kitchen and cook whatever I need, whenever. By the time I'm done cooking, the other portion of my meal will have been prepared by chefs elsewhere I think there are several types of restaurant like that already.
- homonculus1 7y agoSo instead of having a kitchen right in your house you'd rather pay for the privilege of having to walk, bike, or drive there? And then have half your food delivered anyway? What selfish benefit is this even supposed to provide in your own fantasy?
- standardUser 7y agoHaving a full array of high quality appliances and utensils, without the need to invest thousands of dollars over many years? And maybe there's staff to clean up when you're done? Doesn't sound like a terrible thing to me. People love to take cooking classes which are a similar experience.
- nkrisc 7y agoYou can cook most common meals with a few pots and pans and a hot plate, maybe a couple hundred invested, tops. An array of high end appliances and utensils makes it easier, but is by no means necessary.
- bluGill 7y agoThe point is to make it more enjoyable and easier. I only need a few tools. However a lot of those expensive tools make it easier and more fun to cook. My kitchen lacks a springform pan which means my cheesecake isn't right, and I lack the storage space for a pan that I'd use so rarely.
- magduf 7y agoWhat exactly is the point of using these expensive appliances and utensils to make a really nice meal, if it's going to be stone cold when you finally get it home to serve it? Or are you going to eat at the rental kitchen?
- Shivetya 7y agoSorry, doesn't make sense. Removing kitchens is just an odd idea. Food preparation is so varied who would want to pass the duty off to others. For many it is as much artistic expression as need. If anything what technology like this offers is growing food closer to the areas where it is currently transported which in turn would remove those costs from the process plus lots of related effects on traffic and pollution.
- BoorishBears 7y agoRemoving kitchens is already happening: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/24/homes-without-kitchens-ubs-report https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/24/homes-withou... Plenty of people in major cities no longer cook. > Food preparation is so varied who would want to pass the duty off to others. Are you joking? You don't see why people would want to spend the time they use to prepare food to do other things just because it's varied? There are over 700 restaurants on doordash delivering to my location right now, by dinner I've seen that number go as high as 1,500. How many lifetimes would it take to be able to recreate even 10% of those menus? - I can cook, but to me it's like changing my oil or cleaning my apartment. Some people love to make a face and go "you don't cook?!?!?!" Yeah... not everyone considers cooking "artistic expression", imagine not understanding that.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- markus92 7y agoThis is very much a cultural thing. I only know one person who doesn't cook, and that's an American. All of my European friends/family/acquaintances can't imagine not cooking. Even I had ask a few times if what my American friend was saying, was for real.
- standardUser 7y agoThe trend is clearly moving in one direction, and that direction is not towards more time spent cooking at home.
- 0xcafecafe 7y agoKitchens were out of the homes a few centuries back due to fire codes back then (from what I learned in the plantation tours in Louisiana,US). Today there is no reason for kitchen not be in the house. With all the news about pollution, potential pandemics, it is good to have a controlled environment where the food you ingest is prepared (even though ingredients are not 100% controlled). Personally, I find cooking meditative and relaxing after a long day in my cubicle and I enjoy eating what I make myself sans excess oils, food colors, etc.
- tndl 7y agoOr, instead of moving the kitchen out of the house, what if food growing/delivery evolved in the direction where you have the farm in your house? Companies like AeroGrow already make big consumner hydroponic indoor grow systems.
- bluGill 7y agoIf the goal is fresh that might work out. However over the whole lifecycle big farms are generally cheaper and better for the environment.
- detritus 7y agoThere's nothing new under the sun, as they say - what you're suggesting was fairly common for poorer households back in ancient Greece and Rome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium
- jiofih 7y agoThat was actually the case before the industrial revolution. Having a kitchen was either a wild luxury or a workplace (cooking for hire), the majority of the population ate foods cooked in batch.
- Shivetya 7y agoSo 300% more efficient than farms in yield but there is criticism in costs related to electricity to run it all. how about no need for traditional pesticides plus lack of exposure to pollution or animal feces. the reduction in water usage alone should be pay back. The 300% number is not substantiated in the linked articles and comes with typical qualifying comments. So reading about about the potential pitfalls avoided by just farming indoors has always looked amazing but now with better computers and LED lighting reducing electricity use you could play the game of having your indoor farm solar powered without direct contact of sun and plant, just cover your roof in panels. Anyone with knowledge that besides fruits what else does not lend itself to this type of farming.
- eesmith 7y ago"the reduction in water usage alone should be pay back." How? Farmland irrigation water is cheap. Really cheap, compared to what you can get in the city. Prices I see are something like $5,000 per acre-foot in the city vs. $40 per acre-foot for the Central Valley. (see https://news.berkeley.edu/berkeley_blog/the-cost-of-irrigation-water-and-urban-farming/ https://news.berkeley.edu/berkeley_blog/the-cost-of-irrigati... )
- BoorishBears 7y agoIf we're being forward thinking, as water scarcity kicks in over the next several decades, maybe we'll start seeing farms paying closer to the true worth of water. You can bury your heads in the sand and downvote all you want, doesn't change reality my friends: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-dollars-are-financing-the-water-crisis-in-the-west/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-dollars-a...
- stevenwoo 7y agoI would hope for that future, but the electoral college and Senate rules/makeup favoring low population rural areas ( at federal level and most state senates) which turn out to be farm areas argues against farm subsidy trend overriding common sense water usage i.e. irrigating deserts to grow negative profit crops will continue until a prolonged disaster forces a reckoning.
- wenc 7y agoSingapore Airlines is known for their cabin experience, so I'm guessing the vegetables taste pretty good? I've heard the opposite of greenhouse produce from the Netherlands (Europeans complain that the tomatoes from greenhouses don't taste very tomatoey). Now the Dutch are extremely advanced at the greenhouse game (probably best in the world), so I wonder why the difference? Is it merely a perception issue? (would love to hear thoughts from Europeans)
- chopin 7y agoDutch tomatoes are said to be a fourth aggregate state of water. This however applies to any vegetable that can be purchased in Germany. Almost independent of price.
- brnt 7y ago> Dutch tomatoes are said to be a fourth aggregate state of water. Actually... 'Dutch tomatoes' are the perfect example of an industrialized variety: looks and handles well, dirt cheap. There are delicious tomatoes produced in the Netherlands, but your friendly local grocer (Aldi, Lidl sounds like) doesn't actually want to sell them because they are not what the market wants, nor worth the extra handling costs. See a local farm for tasty produce, not your local Aldi or Lidl. The Netherlands in particular exports all it's best in class agricultural products in certain markets abroad that care and pay for quality, but most of roughly northern Europe does not. As a Dutchman this frustrates me to no end, because I can't get the good stuff produced next-door unless I go there and find a friendly farmer who is interested in selling small quantities to individuals (and due to the level of industrialization they often don't!)
- chopin 7y agoSourcing high quality vegetables is very difficult in Germany. Even with local farmers it is very hard to come by. It is quite easy to find sources for organic food but most of it tastes equally bad compared to non-organic, sometimes even worse.
- ValentineC 7y ago
- tuna-piano 7y agoI know almost nothing about indoor farming, aeroponics, urban farming, etc - but I get the feeling that people think its better because it appears clean. Farming and dirt is dirty, and indoor/urban farms/aeroponics are shiny and clean. Of course being dirty has nothing to do with global warming or the environment, but that type of analysis is much more complicated than "looks clean!"
- rtkwe 7y agoMaybe but there's other theoretical benefits too; food grown closer to it's consumption point releases less CO2 being transported and could be fresher, reduced run off from fertilizers and pesticide use, and reduced land use from building vertically. It's not just the attraction of the clean look, though that is part of the appeal, but there are real benefits.
- spurdoman77 7y agoI've understood transportation costs are less than 5% from the overall production cost/carbon footprint of vegetable production. So it really makes sense to transport veggies and fruits from far away if even minor benefits on other production steps can be achieved. Similarly also plastic packaging has minor footprint compared to the overall production of the vegetable. So, if the food waste is reduced even a little bit with plastic packaging, it is enviromentally better to wrap the veggies in plastic.
- ses1984 7y agoWater management needs to be weighed against carbon footprint. It might be better to increase the carbon footprint slightly, reduce carbon footprint elsewhere, so that water can be managed smarter.
- rtkwe 7y agoThere's a lot more to the environmental impact of our current farming than just the CO2 though. Water run off is a big pollutant as farms have to spray way more fertilizer onto the ground in order to get the plants to grow than they strictly need, in a hydroponics system for example added nitrogen that doesn't get absorbed would just continue to cycle until it is. In a similar vein current farms' usage of herbicides and pesticides have huge impacts on the environment near and downstream of farms. An indoor farm would require low to no herbicide and pesticide use because the environment is contained and controlled, plus any use would be more easily contained reducing run-off again.
- alach11 7y agoI wonder what precautions they take to avoid pests? With no use of pesticides, I imagine an outbreak of pests could be very costly. In the images we can see gloves and what looks like a blue uniform/coat they're wearing.
- nimbix 7y agoI gotta give it to Signapore Airlines PR machine - they sure manage to get them some good press. Too bad the actual experience flying them is not that exceptional. And don't get me started about their food... Out of 20+ airlines I've flown in the past 5 years, SA's food was by far the worst. I really regretted paying extra to fly with them instead of Qatar (who have excellent food).
- jessaustin 7y agoI take it you don't fly coach? There are lots of big airlines whose coach food options are pretty bad.