Technology: Grow Vegetables Without Sunlight

I know this may sound creepy, but have you ever wondered how we will grow vegetables if there is ever a nuclear holocaust and we are all living in our bunkers?

Even if we live in a super fancy bunker like this, we are still going to have to grow food, right? I mean, we can’t live on canned food forever and stay healthy, can we? Well now we don’t have to worry about such things in our post-apocalyptic future. It is now officially possible to grow vegetables without sunlight.

This vending machine looking contraption below is called a “Chef’s Farm.” Right now, it is designed to be used in restaurants that want sun-free vegetables (what restaurant would want that?). It can produce up to sixty heads of lettuce per day with 40 watt fluorescent lighting. That is 20,000 heads of lettuce per year. Right now, this machine costs about $90,000. According to all the reports I’ve read about it, “there is no word on the quality or nutritional value of the lettuce.” Hmm… that is kind of a big deal, isn’t it? Haha You can read all the geeky details about this machine here, but in a nutshell, it works like a great big tanning bed for vegetables. Hey, I wonder if this is how we will get a suntan someday when there is no sun too. I know, it’s really nothing to joke about.

[via Treehugger]