You'll find many discussions about using it on the Harvest forum here - the canning and preserving forum. Pickle Crisp is the brand name most of us use although the food grade calcium chloride is is also available in bulk quantities from several sources. Most recipes call for only 1/4 tsp. of Pickle Crisp so it is used in minimal amounts. Both calcium and chloride are natural elements, present in the body naturally. But both are mined elements so labeled by AMS/USDA as "non-synthetic substances prohibited for use in organic crop production except as a foliar spray to treat a physiological disorder associated with calcium uptake." As for eating it - your choice. Dave

Well, the instructions from their website says Quote, "If the calcium level of your source water is below 50 PPM, you should add 1 ounce of Calcium Chloride, (or 25% of the weight of Calcium Nitrate that you are adding) per 100 gallons of working solution, in with the calcium nitrate until you have increased your calcium levels to full strength. This will supplement the calcium levels in your working solution without increasing the amount of nitrogen to your seedling plants." I was thinking since I'm using RO water with 0 E.C./TDS reading, then I need to supplement calcium per instructions. Or do I? I dunno, was thinking maybe someone out there has heard of or used a 3 part solution with RO water that could guide me. NOTE: After the original post I found food grade hydro Calcium Chloride, it's pretty cheap so I guess I'll follow the instructions and see what happens. What I didn't like about the Floramato: It's designed for "Tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, melons, beans, strawberries etc." Its more of a general purpose hydro mix, but I'm only growing tomatoes. The reason I used it last year was b/c it was the closest thing I could find for a hobbyist tomato grow. Upon further research it seems as though it is inadequate for a tomato grow. I also feel like the nitrogen levels were too high for tomatoes, but I'm not sure about that. Another main reason to change is that the Chem-Grow is approximately 1/4 the cost of Floramato. Here is a link that might be useful: The Greene Tomato

When I went to my local pool store asking advice I was told MA was the best thing to use. I'm sure there are other products but MA does work. If you dilute it enough you shouldn't have to worry about it damaging your tile. I diluted it 1 part MA to 4 parts water. Works great.

let us not forget that mother nature intended cow milk to be produced for her cow babies - NOT for human consumption. the lie that we need milk for calcium is baloney. where did that cow get the calcium? PLANTS! if you'd like to get more calcium in your diet, cut out the middleman and just eat plants high in calcium. would you drink another human's milk after infancy? if a nursing mother bottled up her breast milk, would you drink it? didn't think so. then why drink a cow's? an animal of a different species??? just something to think about....