Vegetables grown in a factory with no pesticide chemicals might be safer to eat than field-grown vegetables, but consumers are still reluctant to bite. To correct this, Kyoto Prefectural University has a nutritious sales pitch it hopes will make them more appetizing.
It says it has developed the technology at its campus here in Kansai Science City (Keihanna) to significantly enhance antioxidant properties and minerals in vegetables grown indoors.
“We are hoping that the technology will attract widespread attention and become popular,” said Go Takeba, former president of the university and professor emeritus of vegetable physiology.
The university discovered that combining blue light-emitting diodes with culture fluid that does not contain nitrogen considerably increased the amount of vitamin C and other antioxidants up to 10 to 50 times more than field vegetables, according to Takeba.
