Today Cathy Isom tells us about edible packaging that can cover your food and is also safe to eat. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
Download Edible Packaging
in an attempt to do away with all of that excess plastic that covers and protects much of our food products – researchers at the U-S Department of Agriculture have come up with a unique idea. Milk-wraps. These new bits of packaging are clear like plastic and fairly pliable, and they’re made from the protein casein, which is found in milk.
Of course this is a much different version than that of your 9th grade science class experiment. Researchers say these particular films created now are up to 500 times better than conventional plastics at protecting a food item against oxygen. Not only that, the milk wraps are much more biodegradable than other plastics, breaking down easily in landfills. And it doesn’t stop there. Researchers want to experiment with flavors and possibly add vitamins and minerals to make them function as supplements. The researchers hope to get this product on store shelves in just three years, which means those string cheese wrappers might not to be peeled down anymore, you simply eat them!
Video from: American Chemical Society
Edible, Biodegradable Food Packaging – Headline Science
Most foods come wrapped in plastic packaging. This type of packaging creates a lot of waste and aren’t that great at preventing spoilage. Researchers are now developing a biodegradable film made from milk proteins to hopefully solve these problems.
ACS Headline Science:
Executive Producer: Adam Dylewski
Video Producer: Kyle Nackers