Space saleds

 Living in a martian colony is neither ideal nor horrible, others dream of it and some call it a nightmare due to the fact of the low atmosphere the no ozone layer (the one on our earth to protect us from the heat rays of the sun) which does not exist on mars, most sci-fi movies have either protein bars or pellets to keep people alive and breathing but if you want to say a salad or other leafy greens. The lack of water and the number of sun rays would kill most plants.

Well, most likely you have to eat them / grow them indoors, although we can grow plants in less-lighted areas it still can't beat the sun and the earth's soil compared to the dark. But scientists are trying to figure out how to grow plants in pitch-black darkness.

Despite being around for 3.4 billion years photosynthesis is a pretty terrible process, photosynthesis takes carbon dioxide, water, protons, and energy. the plant turns into sugar molecules for the plant to eat and grow.

One group found that they could use the same ingredients that the plant uses to grow, and instead of using energy they used electricity, a process named electrocatalysis was used to convert Carbon dioxide and water to oxygen and asetate (which asetate is the main ingredient to vinegar) after the group mixed the asetate with some nutrients the plant absorbed the new food source, the plant can take the carbon from the asetate the same way it takes the carbon from the plant sugar.

So electrolysis takes the steps of photosynthesis and cuts down on the unnecessary steps.

With this method, the group was able to grow algae and yeast in total darkness and grew faster with the method than growing naturally, the algae grew 4 times as much and the yeast grew to 18 times larger.

They did the same with other plants like rice, peas, tomatoes, and lettuce, but those were not grown in the dark as they were testing if the plants could take the electrocatalysis solution.

All the crops used the asetate to a decent degree, but you must be wondering "hey if this method is so good why arent we doing it already?", 

"Well my dear reader, its because the more carbon the plant had the weaker the roots and leaves of the plant was".

The group's most likely answer is the potassium in the asetate that was slowing down the growth of the plant, but with the modifications of genetics we could produce plants that are designed to take more asetate than normal and add asetate to the overall build of the plant, and if this idea works then cites and other places of high amounts of populations can use the plants and grow them indoors so that the amount imported goods won't be as much, well the process still requires sunlight but less than the photosynthesis, "BUT there is no reason to use the sun hmmm?."

Possibly one day the globe can get meals, that were not cultivated by sunlight.