Biosphere Experience

The actual diet eaten by the Biospherians during the two years sealed inside was high in quality (we can refer to
this as nutrient rich, which means each calorie is packed with nutrition) and low in calories, but quite limited in
variety. It's not very satisfying to have sweet potatoes as part of every mealbreakfast, lunch, and dinnerfor two to
three straight months, just because they are growing well during that season. (We became very ingenious at
preparing sweet potatoes in different waysas custards mixed with bananas, as roasted slices, baked whole, and so
on). Another of our seasons might be extra heavy on beetseven harder to prepare in different ways.

All Biospherians cooked. Every eighth day you had to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the whole crew.
Almost every breakfast included a porridge made from whole-wheat flour and bananas. The wheat had to be
grown, harvested, threshed, and ground, all by us. And that's just a small task when you're running a whole miniworld.

shows what and how much was eaten by each Biospherian on eight representative days. Crops in
Biosphere 2 were planned so that a complete nutritional complement was always available (the nutrient-rich
calorie), despite changing crop cycles. There were six varieties of fruit (banana, fig, guava, lemon, papaya,
kumquat), five cereal grains (oats, rice, sorghum, wheat, corn), split

REPRESENTATIVE DAILY INTAKES OVER TWO YEARS
IN BIOSPHERE 2 ((GIVEN AS TWO RANDOM DAYS FROM EACH
OF THE FOUR SIX MONTH PERIODS)) *
FOODS AMOUNT (IN GRAMS)
banana 375 197 281 260 254 225 263 319
fig 66 40
guava 13 8 5
lemon 12 6 10 5 12 10
papaya 169 152 35 131 186
kumquat 16
peanuts 25 18 15 18 18 18 18 68
rice 57 102 57 57 57
sorghum 40 70 70
wheat 75 76 198 73 73 153 153 96
corn, 17
beans,
dried 36
lablad 36 28 28 57
pinto 9 50 57
soy 9 29 57
string 26 15 37
peas, split 18
beets 225 281 153 90 118
beet greens 84 40
bok choi 90
cabbage 125 108
carrots 48 86 20 150
chard 188 86 125 33 46 67
eggplant 56 14 37 60 80
cucumber 63 60
herbs 2 15
lettuce 63 46 8 64 40 37 23
malanga 143 280 115
onions 99 66 10 17 18 12
parsley 5 2 4
pepper, green 4 84 73 82 24 50
pepper, red 2 20
potato, swt 300 519 468 552 630 411
potato, wht 236 239
raddish 48
squash 241 394 238 42 71 78 25
tomato 58 321 30 60 84 28
turnip grns 60
eggs 30
goat milk 100 50 70 150 100 165 235 150
pork 43
pork 43
total cal 1825 1863 1910 2201 1935 2190 2140 2274
fat, gms 27 19 22 39 36 37 30 51
protein 62 60 68 69 56 78 70 73
carb 370 360 395 434 327 432 440 425
fiber, gms 48 61 55 52 44 61 55 48
* Additional foods available at various times, but not used on these 8
random days, included oats, millet, kidney beans, lima beans, kale fresh
peas, sweet potatoe greens, purslane, turnips, raddishes, chicken, fish
(talapia), goat meat, and yogurt.