Learning About Aquaponics

I'm excited that we're going to be building, maintaining and tweaking an aquaponics system. It's something I've been interested in for a few years now. It makes perfect sense to me to fertilize plants with fish waste.

While I eat a vegan diet, I don't deny the benefits that consuming fish can have. Of all meats, it is superior in many ways. It has healthier fat, leaner meat, more nutrition, and it is easier on the environment to raise. When feeding cattle you get something like one pound of meet out of seven pound of feed. With fish, you get one pound of fish out of one to two pounds of feed. Much better deal, right?

The Blue Zones, or Longevity Hot Spots, of the world consume a little fish in their diet. The "blue zones" are areas where people live unusually long and are unusually healthy. In these areas, they tend to be nearly vegetarian, with the exception of fish and kefir made from milk. Not that this applies to all the blue zones, but it is a general rule.

The specific rare benefit of fish is getting EPA and DHA directly from the fish. (EPA/DHA are fatty acids that are important to keeping every cell in the body healthy.) Those two components are made from omega-3. We can make the conversion in our own bodies, but sometimes we don't have everything needed or our bodies have other disruptions (like too much omega-6) that prevent the conversion from occurring. In those cases, getting the "final product" so to speak, is highly beneficial for one's health.

It's the same as getting retinal (vitamin A) from meat, as opposed to getting beta-carotene from carrots. We convert beta-carotene in our bodies to retinal. One major difference between EPA/DHA and retinal however, is that it is easy to overdose on retinal. I don't recommend ever taking it as a supplement unless proven that your body absolutely isn't making the carotene conversion. Or, unless, perhaps, you found a supplement with very little vitamin A in it so that there was very little chance of over-dose.

Anyhow, this is all to say that I'm excited to be learning about raising fish and plants together in harmony. I spent an hour and a half yesterday watching youtube videos about building aquaponic systems and I spent an hour and a half today (so far) reading a book on aquaponics. There is a lot more to it than just throwing the fish, pipes and plants together.

In the future I can see Jay and I becoming world wide experts on aquaponics. I just have this really good feeling about it.