Do you remember the Stanford report this past summer that found that organic produce was no healthier than standard produce in terms of nutrition? Well, that made me wonder if there was a way to test the vegetables from my own garden for nutrient density. Testing for nutritional values requires expensive, sophisticated equipment, but I stumbled upon a simple, reliable way to measure brix – and high brix generally means high nutrition. Brix, or technically ‘degrees brix’ is measured with a refractometer, a hand held optical instrument that bends light as it passes through a liquid. As I understand it, the correlation between high brix numbers and nutrient density is generally quite strong. According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, “Brix measures a combination of sugar, amino acids, oils, proteins, flavonoids, minerals and other goodies.”
Being the awesome guy he is, my husband gave me a refractometer for my birthday last week. It’s extremely easy to use. Two drops of juice from a fruit or vegetable is all that is needed to test for brix. The liquid is spread on the refractometer’s lens; you look through it towards a light source and read the scale to get the brix number. The leaves of garden plants may also be tested. An easy way to extract the juice is by using a garlic press. Brix charts are available which help you to determine if the number you come up with indicates poor, average, or excellent quality of the produce you are testing.
High brix gardeners recommend a weak acid soil test and a microbial test. The lab that tests the soil will then recommend amendments and possibly microbial inoculation. Weekly foliar feeding is also a part of the regimen. I am not against this protocol, per say, but I know that the average gardener can neither afford, nor has the time for this. I’m hoping to learn alternative ways to achieve high brix so that I can recommend this to those I work with as a Master Gardener.
Gardening for me, has grown from hand-digging to no-dig lasagna gardening. We are now moving into wood-chip gardening, a la Back to Eden gardening. Both lasagna gardening and wood-chip gardening are forms of sheet composting, and both would be considered Back to Eden gardening. Be sure to watch the free, online documentary Back to Eden, available here. In one part of the film, visitors to Paul Gautschi’s garden are picking produce and eating it. Everything about their reactions says “high brix” to me. The produce is heavy, juicy, and delicious. Although our garden is not yet what Paul Gautschi’s is, I am anxious to test the produce grown in our wood chips to get the brix count.
One of the reasons that produce today is tasteless is because our soils are often mineral deficient. Generally, the amendments recommended by high-brix gardeners are minerals. Another avenue I am pursuing in order to achieve a lower cost way to high brix is using plants in the garden which are mineral accumulators. Comfrey, for example, has long roots which bring minerals from deep in the soil up into its leaves. Its leaves are then used as fertilizer to re-mineralize the soil. This is fairly new to me, and I may be over simplifying it, but my nose will be in the books this winter so that I can learn more.
Can you tell that gardening excites me? There is always something to learn and the rewards are so delicious! Do any of you have experience with high brix gardening? Do you use a refractometer? The one I received for my birthday seems very high quality; according to Amazon, it cost around $100. I see them available for as little as $30. Have you used a less expensive brand? Has it worked well for you?
Well, I’m sorry I can’t tell you all about MY refractometer, but I really enjoyed learning about yours! Thank you, once again, for the information and inspiration. You are full of both!
How interesting! I’ve never heard of a refratometer, seems like a very helpful device!
My hope is to learn enough that I can make recommendations so that YOU won’t need one!
That’s very interesting about the comfrey. I’m looking forward to learning more when share what you find out about other high mineral plants.
The only time I’ve heard of measuring brix was in a Junior Master Gardening class that I made my daughter take. A father who was also sitting in on the class, mentioned that he measures brix. He added some type of mineral to his gardens. I think it was gypsum. After reading your post I’m wondering if he was trying to raise the brix level.
Hi Kristel, it sounds to me like that’s exactly what that father was trying to do. I post as I learn more.
Wow. I never knew such a tool existed! Very interesting. When we get back to gardening (probably not till 2014) I may need to invest in one!
Or just keep reading my blog posts!
Would love to have one of these!!
And I shared this!
Thanks, Jill!!
I read about that report. It was done on produce in the same soil – but more organic produce would be grown in nutrient dense soil, tended to much more than the lacking soil used. I’m sticking with organic when we can afford it or stuff from the farmer’s market!
I completely agree with sticking with organic, although many of the large, organic farms are just using organic fertilizer and not building soil. They are pesticide free, but not nutrient dense. I tested an organic tomato w/ the refractometer and it had a brix reading of 4 – very poor quality. It was likely picked green and was definitely shipped from a distance – the same problems associated w/ standard farming.
Ha! Now I know what to ask for for my next birthday. This is fantastic! Who would have thought? And you make such a good point about the quality of the soil – sometimes I think that as gardeners, we could see ourselves as “stewards of the soil” even more than “stewards of the plants.”
Thanks so much for sharing this in this week’s Thank Goodness It’s Monday carnival. I’ve pinned it on our “Thank Goodness It’s Monday” Pinterest page, too.
Blessings!
Kresha from NourishingJoy.com
Kresha, when I teach gardening workshops, I always ask people what the first thing they think of when they think of gardening, and the response is always “the harvest”. By the time we are done, they change their answer to “the soil”.
I want one!!!!! In a former life (before kids) I was a lab tech. I gotta say that little gadget is not your grandmother’s refractometer! Thank you for sharing.
Hi Laura! Yeah, it’s definitely not a necessity, but sure is fun!
I’ve been using a refractometer and testing for Brix annually since 2010. When I come across a seed that produces a plant with high Brix, I make sure I save it for the following year. I also use a foliar kelp spray on my veg and supplement with worm casting manure tea. While this is a lot of work, my plants are very hardy, blight resistant and tasty. Year over year, I have fewer weeds in my raised beds too. I think/hope it’s going to take another 2 years before I have the soil “balanced” for Brix.
Indio, which refractometer do you have?
Hi, it is great to see people going beyond organic/grass fed and looking to improve the health through superior nutrition. Mineral depleted real food is a major problem that has been ignored.
I would say many people have taken brix out of context. People who serve as standard setters in the nutrient dense farming community, including myself and Dan Kittredge, http://bionutrient.org/, remain skeptical of solely relying on brix by itself as a measure of nutrient density. Hence, Dan has been working on a creating photospectrometer, which will be more reliable than a brix meter. “We are engaged in original research to identify relative disparities in nutritive levels in crops. There are numerous means to accomplish this objective, namely flavor, brix, odor, tissue testing, near infrared spectroscopy, raman spectroscopy, and x-ray fluorescence” (http://bionutrient.org/research).
Although brix is very important, it cannot be used by itself. If a crop is grown using high brix nutrient dense farming principles, stores significantly better or does not rot, has a measurably higher specific gravity, has close to neutral plant sap pH, and exhibits various characteristics of good plant health on the field, then, yes, it is almost certain it will have substantially higher vitamin and mineral content. Brix also will not tell you if a crop is iodine deficient, or lacking any other trace element. I run lab tests of mineral content of different minerals to make sure the minerals are there.
I am skeptical because I have seen farmers do nutrient dense farming get high brix food that rots and does not taste better than the average organic fare.
Reams never mentioned brix as a sole indicator of nutrient density. Rather, he used many tools to measure the end results, including the above plus soil tests, electrical conductivity meter to measure the ERGS (Energy Released per Gram of Soil). He used brix along with 5 other tests in RBTI as applied to human health, after scrapping other tests that showed redundancy.
I recommend testing for the specific gravity of a food and shelf life as simple and inexpensive ways to test the overall nutrition in addition to brix. Specific gravity= weight of food/volume.
You get the volume by placing the food tested in several cups of water into a large measuring cup and measuring how much the water increases when you put the food into the measuring cup. Suppose 1 orange weighs 1/4 lb. Put orange into 2 cups of water in measuring cup and water level goes to 3 cups when you put orange in. Volume=3-2=1. Specific gravity=1/4/1=1/4. Specific gravity is another way to measure density.
Thank you for the great information; I’m as hungry for good info as I am for good food!
Heres a site that has many 0-32 Brix Refractometers for sale.
Check out http://www.RHB-32ATC.com as well!
Happy brixing!