Hate The Taste of Kale? Artificial Intelligence Could Help

Jan 10, 2018

One company is using AI to grow beautiful lettuce without chemicals

By MARIA LAMAGNA  |  REPORTER

Don’t like the taste of kale? Maybe you will soon.

Kale’s distinctive flavor has been compared to a “dusty bitter blanket,” but now there’s hope for those haters from an unlikely ally: artificial intelligence.

Farmers are using technology to tweak the color and flavor of vegetables, including algorithms that can suggest changes in factors like the amount of water vegetables receive and what temperature they’re grown in.

Can AI improve the taste of kale?

One such company, Bowery, which bills itself as “the modern farming company” and was founded in 2015, has an indoor farm based in New Jersey where scientists are adjusting the taste of vegetables including kale.

“Our system is able to say, ‘Do we like what we’re seeing, do we not like it?’” said Irving Fain, Bowery’s co-founder, and CEO. The company’s algorithms analyze everything from the nutrients in the plants’ water to the type of light they are grown under. Bowery said he’s able to grow vegetables without “blemishes,” even though they use no chemicals in their growing process.

See also: Why you may want to avoid eating romaine lettuce

Besides potentially improving taste, that could have another benefit: cutting down on waste. About 6 billion pounds of fresh produce go unharvested or unsold every year, according to an estimate by Feeding America, a nonprofit based in Chicago. Some of those losses happen because of pests, disease, whether or labor shortage, but another portion gets thrown away because it has physical imperfections, which grocery-store shoppers find to be a turnoff. The produce that is misshapen or blemished goes unsold.

As far as improving the taste of kale, Fain might have a tough battle to fight. Although it is trendy, and restaurants have increased their menu items that contain the leafy green, Americans still much prefer lettuces like iceberg. The U.S. either produces or imports approximately 13.5 pounds of iceberg per capita, compared to just 0.6 pounds of kale, according to the latest government data available.

Nutritional content also varies, depending on the lettuce. In one cup of chopped raw kale, there are about 2.2 grams of protein (4% of daily value), 1.3 grams of fiber (5% daily value) and vitamins including Vitamin A (206% daily value) and Vitamin C (134%.) A similar serving size of spinach has about 2% of daily value for protein, 3% of daily value for fiber, 56% of Vitamin A and 14% of Vitamin C. Romaine and iceberg, while they are low in calories, contain very little protein or calcium.