Doritos creator dies in Dallas at 97

By: ASSOCIATED PRESS
From: http://www.chron.com/

DALLAS— Arch West, a retired Frito-Lay marketing executive credited with creating Doritos as the first national tortilla chip brand, has died in Dallas at age 97.

A statement issued by the West family says he died on Tuesday at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

A graveside service is scheduled for Oct. 1. Daughter Jana Hacker, of Allen, told The Dallas Morning News that the family plans on "tossing Doritos chips in before they put the dirt over the urn."

West was a marketing vice president for Dallas-based Frito-Lay in 1961 when, while on a family vacation near San Diego, he found a snack shack selling fried tortilla chips.

Hacker said her father got a tepid corporate response to the tortilla chip idea but conducted marketing research that led to the Doritos rollout.

Clever Tunnel System Makes Chickens Do The Gardening (Video)

by Sami Grover

from http://www.treehugger.com/

Image credit: Ecofilms Australia

We've already seen how one farmer trains her chickens to eat slugs, and the internet is full of examples of chicken tractors—portable coops that can be moved to allow hens to till, fertilize, and weed a plot while providing pest control in the process. (see also this overview of chicken tractors at Planet Green.) But one Australian permaculturist has taken this idea to the next level—designing an intricate system of "chook tunnels" that let him funnel his ladies into any part of his garden. The amount of work that these creatures can do is actually quite amazing.

Of course many vegans will object to the idea of animals being used as "slave labor", but a system like this does go a large way toward answering the accusations of inefficiency so often leveled against animal husbandry. As soon as we stop thinking about chickens, or any other domesticated creature for that matter, as meat or egg production "machines", but rather as a productive, integrated member of a broader ecosystem, the efficiency equation starts to look a little different.

From processing weeds and food scraps into eggs and fertilizer, to replacing the need for human and/or mechanized labor in tilling, this really is yet another example of farming with animals the right way.

More on Chickens in the Garden

• DIY Chicken Tractors
• Chook Tractors Provide Mobile Chicken-Labor
• Training Chickens to Eat Slugs

The Art and Science of S’mores

From: http://www.visualnews.com/

Does anyone know where the idea for the s’more came from? How about how it got its name? Did you know that there is an official 3-step process to making them? And where DID all those parts come from, anyway? I bet you want to know. I did. Yes, It’s all here, the classic ingredients, the history, the tips on mallow roasting and fire managing, and even–yes–an explanation of the Russian Matryoshka Mallow doll technique. You too, can be a master of the mallow and czar of sweet, sticky, melty campfire crackers. REI shares its tips and tricks of this delectable, historic treat.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

Foodie Underground: Top 10 Oddest Food and Foodie Blogs

by Anna Brones
from http://ecosalon.com/

ColumnThanks to the internet, there’s a blog for every kind of food, no matter how weird.

The only thing more important to a foodie than a kitchen is the internet. How else are you going to showcase all of your favorite food porn shots that you take at dinner every night? But just like with anything on the internet, it’s easy to go too far. Fortunately that means entertainment for the rest of us, and if you’re really lucky, maybe even some weird food inspiration. Here are our top 10 picks of weird food blogs, enjoy!

1. Scandybars

“Like a blog in a candy store,” this blog is almost a scientific collection of candy. It features the photos of cross sections of various candy bars, making you think of your favorite $0.99 overly sugary chocolate fix in a whole new way.

2. Scanwiches

The cross section fad continues, this time with scanwiches. Some look grosser than others (hint: hotdogs), but you never know what might just turn into the inspiration for tomorrow’s lunch.

3. F*ck You Yelper

As helpful as Yelp can be, crowd sourcing food reviews inevitably leads to a fair amount of moronic opinions. Thankfully F*ck You Yelper has them all rounded up in one place, sure to amuse anyone that’s ever questioned the future of society after spending a little too much time perusing Yelp comments.

4. The Bacon Show

Disclaimer: there are a lot of bacon blogs out there. But this one is one of the most extensive, currently claiming over 2000 recipes. And they stick true to their motto of, “One Bacon Recipe, Everyday, Forever.” So if you’re as obsessed with bacon as every other internet user, check it out.

5. Airline Meals

There’s no getting around it: traveling is fun but airplane food is not. Just because you got yourself on an international flight and don’t have to pay $10 for a dry and scratchy turkey – wait, is that actually turkey?? – sandwich, does not mean you’re going to get a satisfying meal. If you’re stuck in economy, all you can do is hope that your meal will be interesting enough to photograph and pop onto Airline Meals, which has a stunning archive of all kinds of meals served to the mile high club.

6. What the F*ck Should I Make for Dinner?

Tired? Feeling a drought of culinary creativity? Take that negative energy and make your way over to What the F*ck Should I Make for Dinner, a site that gives some simple and humorous suggestions on what you should be serving. Don’t expect any recipes, but at least you’re getting some advice, which we all know the internet is always good for.

7. This is Why You’re Fat

An internet sensation, This is Why You’re Fat is the epitome of weird food blogs. Feel bad about your diet lately? A quick scan through some of these photos will get you back to carrot sticks and hummus in no time.

8. Hipster Food

A quality food blog whose name is intended to be tongue-in-cheek. It’s actually a vegan food blog with creative recipes and hipster enough that they don’t capitalize the first letter of a sentence. Even if you have a vegan vendetta, you should still probably check it out.

9. Cutest Food

If you’re like me and have a cupcake aversion, consider yourself warned: this blog is sweet, saccharin, and mostly pink. Think panda cupcakes and waffles with multicolored heart shaped sprinkles. Le sigh.

10. Paula Deen Riding Things

What can we say, the iconic sugar, butter and fried queen photoshopped onto various images is hilarious. Almost as great as Paula’s actual website.

Trim Your Electric Bill With these No-Cook Recipes

• Frugal Foodie
• From: http://www.mint.com/
  

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When the temperature starts to climb, it’s cheaper not to cook. Yes, really.

Using the oven makes your house hotter, forcing the air conditioner to work that much harder and padding your electricity bill. Haven’t turned on the a/c yet? The extra heat may make it that much more tempting. But it’s not as though dining out is cheap, either. The combo solution: turn on the oven only in the cooler evening hours, use the microwave or grill outside when possible and work in a few no-cook, cooling recipes.

We asked chefs, bloggers and home cooks for their best cheap summer recipes that will help you beat the heat and don’t require the use of the oven or stove:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Frozen Bars

Cost: $1.78, or $0.15 per serving

Dietician Brenda Ponichtera, the author of Quick and Healthy, makes a frozen treat that is both decadent and diet-friendly. Line a 9” by 13” pan with graham cracker squares. In a separate bowl, prepare two packages of chocolate pudding according to the package directions but using only three and one-third cups fat-free milk. Beat in one-quarter cup peanut butter. Spread mixture on top of graham crackers and then top with another layer of crackers. Freeze for four hours, and then cut into squares.

Banana “Ice Cream”

Cost: $1.45, or $0.36 per serving

No ice cream maker necessary for this faux ice cream from Happy Herbivore blogger Lindsay Nixon. Just throw two frozen bananas into a food processor with a quarter-cup non-dairy milk plus a quarter-teaspoon each of vanilla extract and cinnamon. The chilled, blended banana mimics the texture of ice cream perfectly.

Tangy Watermelon Salad

Cost: $6.20, or $0.62 per serving

This recipe from Jill Ross of Gooseberry Patch is not your average fruit salad. Cube a watermelon (about 14 cups) and mix with one thinly sliced red onion. Set aside. In a small bowl, combine three-quarters cup orange juice, five tablespoons red wine vinegar, two and a half tablespoons honey, a tablespoon finely chopped green pepper, a half-teaspoon salt, a quarter-teaspoon pepper, a quarter-teaspoon garlic powder, a quarter teaspoon onion powder, a quarter-teaspoon dry mustard and three-quarters of a cup of oil. Pour dressing over watermelon and mix gently. Refrigerate for two hours.

Stuffed tomatoes

Cost: $1.80, or $0.90 per serving

Joan Jacobsen of Baby Boomer Way makes stuffed tomatoes by cutting the tops off two large, firm tomatoes and scooping out the insides. In a bowl, mix a 12-ounce can of tuna, a stalk of finely chopped celery, a quarter-cup of chopped red onion, half of a ripe avocado and the pulp of the tomatoes. Add the juices of half of a lemon and salt and pepper to taste. Mix all together with a fork, and then place into tomato shells. Chill, then serve.

Strawberry Mint Lassi

Cost: $3.65, or $0.91 per serving

“Mint, yogurt and ice work collectively as a trilogy of coolants,” says Gurapeet Bains, the author of Indian Superfood. Place in a blender nine ounces of hulled strawberries, a few fresh mint leaves, seven ounces plain yogurt, a large handful of ice and sugar to taste. Blend together until smooth.

Cold Cucumber Yogurt Soup

Cost: $3.71, or $0.93 per serving

Cumin and peperoncini and a kick to this cold soup recipe from Anne Maxfield of Accidental Locavore. Blend, chill, enjoy.

Watermelon Gazpacho

Cost: $12.55, or $1.25 per serving

For a refreshing cold soup, Chef Eric Gruber of Shore Lodge and Whitetail Club in McCall, Idaho, pairs a peeled, diced seedless watermelon with more savory fare. Blend the watermelon in a blender in batches with 10 diced Roma tomatoes, two diced red onions, two peeled, seeded and chopper cucumbers, two seeded and diced jalapenos, one seeded and diced poblano, two quarts of V8 vegetable juice, a quarter-cup lemon juice, a quarter-cup lime juice, a bunch of chopped cilantro, a tablespoon Tabasco sauce, a tablespoon sriracha sauce, a quarter-cup olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate overnight and then pass through a medium mesh strainer to remove any remaining chunks.

Frugal Foodie is a journalist based in New York City who spends her days writing about personal finance and obsessing about what she’ll have for dinner. Chat with her on Twitter through @MintFoodie http://www.twitter.com/mintfoodie.

Chef creates Star Wars replica treats for diners at his sushi restaurant

From: http://www.metro.co.uk/

Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are among the famous faces to be sculpted from everything from carrots to sweet potato – complete with a side serving of the phantom lettuce - by a top sushi chef.

Green machine: A tasty Stormtrooper looks less menacing sat on a carrot Speeder Bike

The likes of Yoda, R2D2 and Han Solo are held together with bamboo skewers and toothpicks and feature light sabers and other weapons.

They are the brainchild of Japanese sushi chef Okitsugu Kado who spends more than ten hours carving the vegetables before painstakingly piecing them together.

Star Wars favourite Yoda

‘In most cases I place vegetable sculptures on a dish for customers with their food, although with some of the bigger ones occasionally I will only put on display,’ said Mr Kado, from Osaka.

‘I’m a huge Star Wars fan and a member of a Japanese fan group called Jedi Order.

Ahsoka Tano, from The Clone Wars

Hero Han Solo

‘For my carvings I use everything from carrots, white radish, sweet potato, Kyo-potato, radish, even pumpkin and more.

‘I’ve been carving vegetables for almost 15 years and have made more than 40 sculptures. Before that I trained in ice carving.’

Star fry veg: R2D2 and an Ewok (Pictures: Caters)

Despite his carvings taking a number of hours, he admits to getting lost in a galaxy far, far away with time passing without him even realising.

‘Sometimes I need over ten hours to finish just one sculpture but it doesn’t matter to me because during carving I forget the time,’ said the 39-year-old, who works at sushi bistro Minayoshi.

‘I just want to see people smile – that is why I carve.’

GIRL MEETS FOOD - BACON CUPCAKES

From: http://www.viceland.com/

Squeeeee! I love cupcakes! I love them so much I’m going to open my own boutique bakery! But only if I can fit it in around my daily thrifting and passion for hammering out handmade fascinators! But for now, let’s just have a cupcakes and appletinis party! We can watch Bridget Jones together and then sit in a circle talking to our vaginas in a hand mirror! Exclamation marks!
Actually, I truly believe that it is possible to eat a cupcake without being a twee dick about it. New wave liberated Stepford wife retro femininity bullshit is not really my bag, and I maintain that you don’t have to wear a floral dress to bake. You can wear a cum- and lager-stained Snuggie. So there.
Bacon Cupcakes
As I’ve said before, bacon is the porn of the meat world. Everything can be improved by adding bacon. I know this recipe sounds really gross, and to be honest, the piggy dripping you’re gonna be slapping in is gross. You have to think of it as an all-in-one breakfast. Like this. Yum.
Ingredients
Pack of bacon rashers
Leftover bacon-y drippings
¼ - cup of unsalted butter
1 - egg
¼ - cup of brown sugar
¼ - cup of maple syrup
1 ¼ - cup of self-raising flour
½ - tsp of baking powder
1/3 - cup of milk
For the icing…
1/3 - cup of butter
1 - tbspn of maple syrup
1 - tsp of vanilla essence
1 - cup of icing sugar
Sprinkles
More bacon
Step 1.

Fry your bacon rashers until they’re extra crispy. Be sure to waft the evaporating bacon water into your hair and the pores of your face, as seen in Fig. 1. When you shower later and the water drips down into your mouth, it’ll be like you got to eat it twice! Oh, and remember, you’re saving the elixir of life that is the leftover piggy dripping.

Step 2.

Once your rashers are cool, go at your meat pile with a knife and set aside. Clean off the knife, too, it’ll come in handy later when you’re hacking into your chest to perform a DIY heart bypass.

Step 3.

Put the butter, sugar, syrup, and fatty bacon slush you rescued from the pan earlier into a bowl and beat off… the mixture. Mmmm.

Step 4.

Whisk in the egg. It will look like cat vomit at this point. You’re going to have to power through that.

Step 5.

Sieve in the rest of your dry ingredients.

Step 6.

Slop in the milk and fold together till it stops looking like something Shane MacGowan just spit up.

Step 7.

BACON!

Step 8.

Plop your porky blobfish into ruffs and bake for 20 minutes at 350f.

Step 9.

OK, they’re wonky because they’re “rustic.” Just like my breasts.

Step 10.

The frosting is un-fuckupable. Just dump all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk. If you start worrying about prissy shit like piping, you’re probably not gonna enjoy the phrase “garnish with bacon.” More eating, less making stuff look pretty.

There you have it, both the perfect hangover cure AND a majestic army of bacon beauties. As always, eat alone on the kitchen floor with a Lactulose chaser.
JOANNA FUERTES-KNIGHT

Read the rest at Vice Magazine: GIRL MEETS FOOD - BACON CUPCAKES - Viceland Today

Peachy Canyon Winery: Old Jesse James Hideout Turns Sustainable Winery

by Jerry James Stone

from http://www.treehugger.com/

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Photo via Peachy Canyon



Peachy Canyon Winery is a sustainable, family-owned winery located on the westside of Paso Robles' popular Highway 46. The winery is named after a horse thief who took refuge in a cave near the vineyard; Jesse James made use of the same hideout.

Peachy--the oddly named horse thief--was eventually caught and hung in town. Jesse James' uncle, Drury James, co-founded the town of El Paso de Robles and was part owner of the famous La Panza Ranch where James and his brother, Frank, took shelter after holding up a bank in Russellville, Kentucky, on March 20, 1868. Jesse was ailing a gunshot wound from the robbery.

 
Photo by Jaymi Heimbuch

The winery has four estate vineyards, totaling 100 acres, and also sources grapes from other growers within the Paso Robles AVA. The Old School House Vineyard, located within the county's Templeton Gap, was purchased in 1998. The property's landmark attraction--yes, a school house--was built circa 1886 and now serves as the winery's only public tasting room. Their other vineyards include Snow Vineyard, Mustang Springs Ranch and Mustard Creek.

A Family Affair

The Beckett family relocated to Paso back in 1982 when they sold everything they had to buy a walnut farm in the area. It was there that Doug Beckett met hobby winemaker Pat Wheeler who had a garage-based winery. Soon Doug had his eyes set on an even larger commercial venture, a winery. Pat, who was hoping to leave the Golden State (crazy talk!), was less interested. So Doug, along with his wife Nancy, moved all of the winemaking equipment from Pat's garage to the farm near Peachy Canyon Road.

Thanks to a load of Zinfandel grapes from Benito Dusi's vineyard, Peachy Canyon Winery officially launched their label in 1988 with just a few hundred cases. Since then the Beckett's have gotten a wee bit more ambitious, production this year is set for 84,000 cases!

 
Photo of Josh Beckett via Peachy Canyon
While Doug and Nancy still head the winery, their sons Josh and Jake also play a big part in the family business. Josh has worked at the winery for about nine years and has been the winemaker since 2003. Jake is the winery's General Sales Manager.

You Gotta be Nuts!

Josh explains that before the original vineyard was in fact a vineyard, it was an organic walnut grove, "There was no certification back then but it was definitely organic because [with] dry farmland that's all you do -- prune and cultivate, and that's it. Like out there, there's no spraying, no nothing going on out there. You just turn the soil, shake the trees and pick the nuts up off the ground, and you prune in the winter, and that's it. That's all you do with walnuts."

Walnuts were sold to both Diamond Foods of California and a tiny little candy company known as See's Candies. In fact, the original vineyard near Peachy Canyon Road still grows both crops. It's about one-quarter walnuts and the rest is grapes.

 
Photo via Peachy Canyon

The walnuts didn't stick around but the sustainable farming practices did.

Doing It the Old Fashioned Way

All four vineyards compost the waste accumulated during harvest; grape skins, stems, seeds, everything is recycled and put back into the vineyard. By doing so, Peachy Canyon is able to avoid using fertilizers.

Cover crops are grown throughout the vineyards every year. Barley is the crop of choice as it prevents runoff during the rainy season. Other plants include vetch, legumes and other beans. In the Spring, the barley and other plants are mowed and disked back into the soil.

"We like to see the grass and we like to see the different weeds because we know there's life in there [the vineyard] and there's healthy stuff going on. There's worms, there's all this stuff out there. Without that greenery and without that life, it [the vineyard] wouldn't be there," says Josh.

Pests are kept to a minimum using beneficial insects such as ladybugs, praying mantis and lacewings. Organic style oil is used to thwart leaf hoppers, the vineyards' most common pest. Netting is used to keep out the birds.

Peachy Canyon has been SIP certified since 2007 like some of its neighbors such as Halter Ranch and Robert Hall.

 
Photo via Jaymi Heimbuch

Josh explains that while they do sometimes water and spray, "we don't get on a regimented spray program or a regimented irrigation program. We go out there and spend time [in the vineyards], and we'll see what the plants actually need and don't need, and don't just water just to water. [We] don't just do things because. A lot of the big, huge farms, they have to. They don't have a choice."

Deadly Zins

While Peachy Canyon grows a plethora of varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Malbec, and Petite Verdot but they are really known for their Zins.

Their 2008 Old School House Zinfandel is brooding with dark cherries, cocoa and just enough citrus to keep it fresh and light. This School House Zin is bound to land you in detention. Josh really hits it home with his 2009 Cirque Du Vin, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec that borders on blasphemy. The wine gracefully dances between herbal notes and ripe fruit. Both of these wines can be purchased online for $36 and $17 respectively.

There are two things I never turn down and one of them is a Cab Franc. So I am hesitant to mention Peachy Canyon's 2008 Cabernet Franc. The wine is a tsunami of cherries and currents anchored by a touch of oak and some herbal undercurrents. It retails for $25 and is also available online along with their other wines.
While Paso Robles is no longer the Wild Wild West, you could very well end up in a duel over Peachy Canyon's wine.

Visit TreeHugger's Green Wine Guide for more green wineries, recipes and virtual tours.

Real Live Vertical Farm Built In South Korea, Churning Out Lettuce

by Lloyd Alter

from http://www.treehugger.com/

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• 
  
• 
  

Image Credit Rural Development Administration
We have been showing conceptual vertical farms for years, but in Suwon, South Korea they have one working and producing vegetables. It is a little three storey demonstration project in a nondescript building (image here), operating much like Dickson Despommier has described in his book, The Vertical Farm, right down to the airlocks and sterility he suggests is required.

Image Credit Rural Development Administration
Fabian Kretschmer and Malte E. Kollenberg write in Spiegel Online:

Every person who steps foot in the Suwon vertical farm must first pass through an "air shower" to keep outside germs and bacteria from influencing the scientific experiment.....Heads of lettuce are lined up in stacked layers. At the very bottom, small seedlings are thriving while, further up, there are riper plants almost ready to be picked. Unlike in conventional greenhouses, the one in Suwon uses no pesticides between the sowing and harvest periods, and all water is recycled. This makes the facility completely organic. It is also far more productive than a conventional greenhouse.

The authors tour many of the vertical farms that we have shown on TreeHugger, and note what has traditionally been considered the major difficulty:

The main problem is light -- in particular, the fact that sunlight has to be replaced by LEDs. According to [agriculture researcher Stan] Cox's calculations, if you wanted to replace all of the wheat cultivation in the US for an entire year using vertical farming, you would need eight times the amount of electricity generated by all the power plants in the US over a single year -- and that's just for powering the lighting. It gets even more difficult if you intend to rely exclusively on renewable energies to supply this power, as Despommier hopes to do.

But that is no longer necessarily true. Speigel Online has missed the recent work of vertical farm pioneer Gordon Graff, who's thesis at the University of Waterloo looked at the issue of energy and lighting, and has made a plausible solution for dealing with it. Here is what he proposed:

A vertical farm must be able to produce enough food to cover the cost of its day to day operations and, ultimately, the capital cost of the building's construction (or renovation). While this is clearly dependent on some factors outside the realm of architectonics, such as the market price of food and current state of grow-lighting technology, the physical arrangement of the building can have a profound impact.

For the purposes of the thesis, Graff concentrates on one form of hydroponic system, a a drum system like the Omega Garden, seen on TreeHugger here and here. In terms of yield per kWh it is probably the most efficient system available. He packs it all into a 14,700 square meter building.

The drums are stacked three high,

The drums are then are arranged on the production floor. An automated system extracts the drums and moves them to the ground floor via special dumb-waiters for harvesting.

On the ground floor, the contents are harvested and shipped and the drums are then returned to the growing floors. While the drum system is the most efficient available in terms of electrical consumption, it still adds up to a huge number.

But the lights aren't the only thing sucking up juice; plants transpire a huge amount of water, and the skyfarm has giant dehumidifiers to recapture it. Gordon writes:

Conventional greenhouses and other indoor agriculture facilities currently avoid reclaiming transpired water, electing to simply expel it to the outside world and consume more water to replenish irrigation levels....the incidence of water stress is widely projected to increase throughout much of the world in the coming decades. One study has calculated that if present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living in absolute water scarcity by 2025, while a full two thirds of the human population will face water stress.With agriculture currently accounting for some 72% of human water use it seems likely that such steps to reduce water consumption will become a desirable provision of vertical farming in the future.

In California, an acre of lettuce sucks up between 1800 and 3500 cubic meters of water; the Skyfarm consumes 14.4 cubic meters, 1/240th as much. That is a very compelling reason to sit up and notice vertical farming.

That adds up to a lot of electricity. But fortunately, there is a readily available source being trucked all around Toronto: organic waste from the City's green bin composting program.

97 tons of collected waste would be fed each day into anaerobic digesters that produce methane gas, which then runs General Electric Jenbacher gas-fired generators.

click image to enlarge.
The carbon dioxide rich exhaust is then purified and fed into the atmosphere of the skyfarm to increase food production and convert it back to oxygen through photosynthesis.

Nothing is wasted; even the little bit of nutrition-depleted waste water is run through "Living Machines", a self-contained biological wastewater treatment system designed to purify water using microorganisms, algae, plants, snails, and fish.

click image to enlarge
It is a sophisticated system where Toronto's green bin food waste is fed in one end and lettuce comes out the other end, along with digestate that is a rich fertilizer for conventional farms outside of the City.

I will not go into the pages of financial pro forma analysis, which is based on development costs of $110 million and the hypothetical sale of 25 million heads of lettuce per year into the local market; that is a lot of lettuce just to grow lettuce. But it does show that the economics can work, and as transport costs rise, our water supply gets worse and food costs increase, the economics will only get better.

Gordon's vision of the role of vertical farms in the city is powerful and persuasive. He describes how wasteful and inefficient our current system is:

Urban citizens consume food, water, and other commodities, their buildings and appliances consume electricity, and their vehicles consume fuel - the latter two also involving the consumption of raw materials in their manufacture. Without the complimentary metabolic functions of producers or decomposers urban agents must obtain these resources from sources found outside the community, while also creating wastes of little use to the community, forming the traditional input and output externalities of urban life.

Instead, the vertical farm is part of a closed system.

Vertical farming would increase a city's resilience to the more long- term, systemic alterations that human society is widely expected to experience in the coming decades. With vertical farming's maximally efficient resource use and functional segregation from the natural world, cities could achieve food security amidst the environmental transformations and resource shortages that would cripple a conventional urban food network.

If I have one complaint about the project, and the role of vertical farms in cities, it would be that Gordon did not think big enough. The creative leap that Gordon makes is to tie the vertical farm into the city's organic waste system, but there is a really good reason to put this in the middle of a sea of condominiums: It could act as a giant purification system. Imagine if all of those buildings had vacuum waste systems delivering organic waste, urine separating toilets to deliver phosphorus, gray water systems to supply the plants, which then return pure water through the dehumidifiers. It feeds the city and processes its waste in a closed loop.

Gordon Graff defending his thesis. Image Credit Lloyd Alter
Gordon Graff's thesis is not fully resolved. Architecturally it is not the eye candy that makes so many vertical farm proposals so delicious. But so far as I can tell (and I have looked at a lot of vertical farm proposals) it is the first time that anyone has made a plausible case for why one would want to put a vertical farm in the middle of a city, and shown how it might really work technically and economically. The vertical farm is no longer just pie in the sky.