A New Twist to Growing Your Own Food

VTT, a firm in Finland, has developed its first CellPod prototype, which is currently producing a harvest. Lauri Reuter, VTT research scientist, said: "Urbanization and the environmental burden caused by agriculture are creating the need to develop new ways of producing food - CellPod is one of them. It may soon offer consumers a new and exciting way of producing local food in their own homes.”

The device does a lot more than just growing food. CellPod is based on growing the undifferentiated cells of a plant, rather than a whole plant -- only the best parts of a plant are cultivated. One example is that the nutritional value of a cloudberry cell culture is similar to, or even better than, that of the berry itself.

This approach could well have significant impact on the healthfulness of foods and eliminate much food waste. The big question is whether consumers have finally gotten past their misunderstanding about biotech – or with this, seem to many to be just another example of science manipulating our foods, which is a scary though to a lot of people.

Food and technology should be partners. While a few Silicon Valley tech food startups have come under criticism of late for faulty formulations due to lack of food development knowledge and resources, I have little doubt that the future of our food supply lies in the hands of technology, working side by side with the farmers and ranchers who grow our food. I hope this isn’t another one of those great ideas that never sees reality due to public misperceptions.