#thethirdplate

What makes vegetables tasty? Why are some tomatoes completely tasteless, and others succulent and sweet?

Turns out insecticides and fungicides usurp plant’s natural defences, which means the plant then produces less phytonutrients—amino acids, esters, and flavinoids. Phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals, and sucrose give vegetables their particular flavour.

Phytonutrients are chemicals produced by plants to stay healthy, eg. protect plants from insect attacks, or radiation from UV rays.

In Dan Barber’s book “The Third Plate” the michelin star chef is searching for the perfect prdouce. He uses a brix refractometer to measure the amount of sucrose in his carrots. The refractometer reads a 16.9 Brix, he explains that this “means that the carrots were 16.9 % sucrose and bursting with minerals”.

Meanwhile, landmark studies in both the UK and the USA have shown that soil degradation due to industrial farming has been depleting our once nutrient-rich soil of minerals and vitamins. Apparently, to gain the same amount of vitamin A from an orange as our grandparents would have, you would need to eat eight oranges today.

So what is a brix refractometer?

A brix refractometer measures the sucrose, vitamin, amino acids, and mineral percentage of the crop or food.

How does it work?

Everyone knows Dan Barber surprises you in the kitchen, but who knew he was just as eloquent on paper?

An inquisitive and humble page-turner ‘The Third Plate’ takes the reader though Barber’s investigative journey on real food—envisioning a future plate for coming generations.

As he visits farms, asks questions, applies techniques to Blue Hill, he is simultaneously learning and teaching. Always eager to explore he forges relationships with farm pioneers—characters who give us hope for a greener future. As he analyses the evolution of American food from the ‘first plate’—industrially produced, meat heavy dishes, to the ‘second-plate’ of grass-fed meat and organic greens to a ‘third plate’ of seasonal produce, wild and whole grains, natural rhythms and small portions of protein—a balancing act of what nature can truly provide.