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| Michael Amadorri 紐約州立大學 |
廚餘殘渣 + 小魚搖搖 = 生菜沙拉
Michael Amadori looks into a fish tank growing tilapia in a lab at the State University of New York. The fish waste is used to grow lettuce.
By John Roach
Michael Amadori 在美國紐約州立大學的實驗室養著吳郭魚的水箱。魚的排泄物用來種植萵苣。
John Roach報導
If, in a few years, you are suddenly overcome with a sense that there's something fishy about the lettuce in your salad, you might be on to something. There's a chance it was grown with fish poop.
幾年內，你如果突然發現，在你的生菜沙拉上有些魚味，即有可能是小魚搖搖種出來的生菜。
"There's no fish taste whatsoever," Michael Amadori, a master's student in ecological engineering at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, assured me Wednesday.
星期三Michael向我保證“絕對沒有任何魚腥味，”，Michael Amadori是紐約州立大學的環境科學與林業學院生態工程碩士的學生
For now, Amadori is growing the futuristic lettuce in question as part of a science experiment aimed at closing the loop between the food we throw away and the food we eat.
現在，Amadori用種植生菜來探索連結食物與廚餘循環的科學實驗。
Americans throw out about 25 percent of their food, he noted, a fact that led him to ask: "Can I take this waste product in our society and turn it into a value-added product?"他指出"美國人其實有25％的食品是丟掉的"，導致他質問：“在我們浪費的廚餘中，它可否變成有用的產品呢？”
To find out, he's set up an experiment where he feeds dried food waste from a student cafeteria to fish in freshwater tanks and uses the fish poop to grow Boston Bibb lettuce.
為了找尋解答，他做了個實驗，在這裡他從學生餐廳把廚餘乾燥成魚飼料餵魚,並種植波士頓萵苣。
The concept is called "aquaponics," a combination of fish farming and hydroponics (growing vegetables without soil). Though not new, this is the first time it has been tried with post-consumer food waste to feed fish. Most aquaponic systems, Amadori said, spend about 50 percent of their operating budget on commercial fish feed, which is typically pellets made from ground up fish, corn, and vitamins.
養耕共生的概念雖然不是最新的，但這是首次，利用廚餘乾餵魚。Amadori說，大多數養耕共生系統的50%營運費用來自飼料，通常是雜魚，玉米，和維生素的顆粒組合。
So, while systems such as the Massachusetts Avenue Project in Buffalo, N.Y., and Growing Power in Milwaukee, Wis., are great socially and environmentally, "they are having trouble making a profit," Amadori said.
His experiment is set up in a greenhouse where tilapia, a hardy freshwater fish that will eat just about anything, is raised in half a dozen 55-gallon barrels holding 20 fish each.
因此，如紐約水牛城的Massachussett Avenue Project及威州密爾瓦基的，Growing Power，都是偉大的社會和環保構思，“但是卻無法盈利”Amadori 嘆說。
他成立的實驗是餵養耐寒的吳郭魚，幾乎任何東西都吃，是一個溫室六個55加侖桶，每桶20條魚。
The cafeteria food waste is ground up, dried, and broken up into pellets that are fed to the fish in three of the tanks. The other fish are fed commercial pellets as a control factor.
學生餐廳的廚餘收集起來，乾燥分解成顆粒餵養三個魚中的缸魚。其他魚類以一般飼料餵養以作對照組。
Temperature-controlled water from the fish tanks is cycled into graveled-filled containers where the lettuce grows. "The gravel bed has bacteria that convert the fish waste into plant food and then the plants remove that and the water returns (to the fish tank) clean," Amadori explained.
溫控缸把輸送到生菜的礫石盆做循環。“礫石層有益生菌，把魚的排泄物轉換成植物肥料，然後植栽過濾水質當作回報，Amadori 解釋。”
The experiment has been running for about four months. The fish won't be harvested until they weigh around a pound, at about one year of age. The lettuce, however, is abundant.
"I'm making 18 heads a week and it is delicious," Amadori said. "It tastes just like the lettuce you buy at the grocery store."
四個月的實驗下來。他們成長了一磅，然後生菜更是豐富的。“一週約18個美味生菜"Amadori 說。"就跟你在雜貨店買生菜一樣的味道。”
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