Aquaponics and the Cafeteria

On the campus, there is an aquaponics environment growing tilapia and vegetables.

Fish eat food that contains nitrogen. They excrete ammonia and ammonia is also added from decomposing material. Nitrosomas Bacteria convert the ammonia to Nitrites, and then Nitrobactor Bacteria convert Nitrites to Nitrates. Plants use Nitrates as fertilizer.

Some of the plants that were growing in the greenhouse during the tour...

They are doing a test on growing duckweed as a source of food for the fish (tilapia).

Currently the tilapia are fed externally acquired food, but they would like to make it more of a closed-loop system, and duckweed might provide a solution to that.

As I understand it, one of the goals of the study of aquaponics here is to see what could be done to alleviate "food deserts", city areas where grocery stores have closed down leaving no food stores available other than possibly convenience stores such as 7-11 -- which aren't known for providing fresh fruits and vegetables. I think that Mark (our guide) told us that the space where two cars could park in a driveway could house an aquaponics system that could provide one meal a day for 3-4 families (or, it could provide all the meals for one family as long as they could get used to eating tilapia for 3 meals a day).

http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts

For us on campus, we get to have tilapia and fresh veggies in the cafeteria -- Yum!!!

An additional note about the cafeteria - I am learning the tasks to be able to back up the lady who creates the display of the menu on the screens in the cafeteria, so I was typing in the menu for this coming week... check out what's going to be available on Tuesday....

Uhm, Fried Things?

Our cook, Lety, always makes delicious meals, so I'm sure the Fried Things will be good! Maybe it is a way to get rid of an assortment of things? Or maybe a nod to the Texas State Fairs variety of fried goods each fall? Unfortunately, I will be at the food pantry on Tuesday, so I won't get to sample! I will need to get someone to take a picture so I can report back...

You may note languages listed under the day names - each day of the week, there are options to sit at a table where the folks there will be speaking a foreign language - a way to get conversational practice on a language you're learning, or to connect with other native speakers at lunchtime.