The world wastes 30 percent of all produced food, the total cost of which adds up to about $2.6 trillion. But the problem is bigger than an embarrassing misstep in your weekly budget — the methane emissions of all that rotting food are worse for the climate than if we had simply thrown that cash into the incinerator.
Every fruit and vegetable has a “peel” to protect it from drying out and rotting. Peels are so important, every plant on land has one — from raspberries to roses. The materials that make up skins and peels are ubiquitous and we eat them every day.
A Californian startup called Apeel Sciences developed a thin, transparent, edible coating that can keep food fresh much longer than normal.
The coating, Epideel, preserves food by preventing the two main causes of spoilage. Acting as a physical barrier, Epideel blocks the water in the food from evaporating away and also blocks atmospheric oxygen from reacting with the food.
Apeel forms an exceptionally thin “peel” of edible plant material on the surface of the fruit that naturally slows down water loss and oxidation — the factors that cause spoilage.
Reportedly, the coating can double the shelf life of notoriously finicky foods like avocados.
Reference- Futurism, Apeel website, CNBC
