One advantage of home hydro is better control of food safety. Hydroponics allows you to eliminate or control vectors of food related illnesses (insects, animals, manure). As far as healthy produce, it is probably reasonably healthy. I think more work needs to be done in the area, however. Personally, I would have concerns with low grade chemicals with impurities, because if chronically ingested some would take a long time for symptoms to be exhibited. If there was a problem the average physician would not figure it out. Arsenic contaminants in low grade chemicals such as battery acids is one that concerns me. Another area not addressed is iodine & hydroponics. For example, there are certain "goiter belts" of the country in which individuals have low grade thyroid disease due to iodine deficient soil. Iodine is not added to nutrients  although there are some kelp formulations available.

After going back and forth with Freeman on this in private e-mails, I am becoming disenchanted with R/O for plants, too. My biggest concern was the chlorine because of falling for marketing hype in the hydro publications. I normally don't take magazines to heart because the authors are always writing to promote their own self interest. You'll notice all the "experts" are coincidentally reps or owners of R/O system companies. But, I also read it in commonly recommended book. Anyway, Freeman pointed out that chlorine evaporates pretty quickly. I dug a little deeper to find it to be quite true (spoke with the lab at our waste water treatment plant like he suggested). The minerals in water that will keep your EC high are actually good for you plants. Especially the calcium. The only good thing about the R/O system is that you can get water for drinking that doesn't contain a bunch of drug residues that treatment plants don't remove. I just wanted to put that out there because I thought you might be hearing some of the same R/O hype I've heard. So, even if you feel R/O is a must, you might find it more cost effective to go with a small unit and mix it with tap. Then the stuff you might find bad is at least being diluted. Is there research out there concerning how much of the pharmaceuticals in the water are being taken up by plants? Am I eating estrogen laced tomatoes and peppers?

looks good, but if you plan on maturing that plant there it's going to need a LOT more light and lower light on the sides, as a result, also prepare for more heat generated (even cfls generate a bit of heat in an enclosed area). it will likely out grow that area in a matter of a month.. so start planing on moving to a new area unless you plan on pruning heavily to keep it compact. i would lower the lights to no more than around 8-10 inches above the top of the plant, lights are too high to start off, otherwise they will get leggy.. tomatoes in hydroponic grow extremely fast.. unbelievable fast - under the right conditions they can grow about 1 inch per day. i would add some fertilizer to the water because they grow so rapidly that in a matter of days you'll have the first set of leaves.. start with about 200ppm of fertilizer, work up from there and once it starts flowering increase to max of about 900ppm (you can go higher, but depends how mature the plant is). good luck!

So here's a DIY hydroponic tomato plant growing in perlite using miracle grow and epson salts as it's nutrient solution. Some of you are shaking your head, but understand this was done as an experiment. Just to be clear, MG isn't meant for hydroponic use. (or at least the type I used isn't) It's using a homemade hydroponic wick system setup in a normal 4 inch pot, (non netty pot) attached to a coffee container, without a bubbler. I didn't think it would survive, and has suffered from the most un ideal growing conditions, and has even surpassed it's siblings. It was pulled from a 4 inch pot growing with 10 other siblings when it was about 6 inches tall 2 months ago, and has been growing hydroponically ever since. It grew near a window sill while it's siblings got the best sunlight, here's a shot of it about a month ago, depicting where it grew. It's paired up next to a tomato plant that's a month older then it, which it also outgrew. Growing conditions for this thing hasn't been ideal to say the least. You'll probably notice the bottom leaves are yellow and dying off, all the tomatoes suffered this due to lack of light and cold temps that shocked them all. It's been growing outside on the deck for the last 2 weeks finally getting some proper light, but is getting hammered with cold days and heavy rain which is flooding the nutrient solution. Surprisingly enough, it's starting to bloom, but I suspect it's siblings will start catching up very soon as the pot that it's in, isn't ideal. I haven't had time to cage it yet, it was pretty limp and I'm waiting for it to harden off a little more. The new growth is looking just as good as it's siblings. I'll try post updates on it and it's siblings for comparison in the next couple weeks. btw It's using water soluble miracle grow tomato fertilizer which isn't meant for hydroponic use. Something like 24-16-16, with epson salts and well water. Ph was never tested.