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Comments: 475 +- Science: Low-Energy Laser Etching May Replace Fruit Labels on Thursday November 05, @07:57AM
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by
samzenpus
on Thursday November 05, @07:57AM
from the tattooed-fruit dept.
from the tattooed-fruit dept.
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idle
MikeChino writes "How many times have you bit into a piece of fruit only to find that you're also chomping on a sticker label? The small sticky labels have long been the bane of waste-conscious fruit and vegetable eaters, but that might all change thanks to new technology that uses a low-energy carbon dioxide laser beam to etch information directly onto produce. No more peeling those annoying labels! So far the technology is being used on a number of fruits and vegetables in New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific Rim countries, and it's currently going through the final stages of review by the FDA. Once the technology is approved in the US, researchers from the University of Florida and the USDA Agricultural Research Service hope that it will be used in Florida's massive grapefruit industry."
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Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Funny)
No, they'll just etch "This unit not labeled for individual sale" on each one and make you buy them by the bag instead.
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, this is one of the things about organic fruit and vegetables that bugs me. My grocer tends to have the organic fruits and veggies pre-packaged rather than lose. I might only want 3 apples, but guess what, they only come in 6 packs. Want a few organic bananas, too bad. The organic ones have a sticky plastic strip around them so you can't just break off the amount you want.
I'm pretty selective about what I buy and I only want to buy what I need. And I definitely don't need a bunch of extra packaging. In the end, I often end up buying non-organic food just because I end up wasting less that way.
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Funny)
Even better, you will soon be able to custom-engrave your fruit. Popular choices:
etc.
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Funny)
"This Fruit Intentionally Left Blank"
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Corporate advertising. (Score:5, Funny)
"This Apple brought to you by Apple"
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Re:Corporate advertising. (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing. If Apple starts making laser etched fruit trendy, soon they'll have a whole produce division! Couple that with genetic modification and one day I'll be able to compare Apple's Oranges to Orange Apples and.....oh no, I've gone cross-eyed....
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Re:Corporate advertising. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Funny)
fertilizing with human manure illegal
Shouldn't be. Human manure, especially that from politicians and lawyers, is some of the finest crap on the planet.
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Informative)
Because it isn't true.
There are very many fruits in the world that are eaten by humans. They can be very different in their effects.
Many fruits contain lots of sugar. That's not good for diabetics.
Some fruits have very high potassium levels - this is normally good for people with high blood pressure, but bad for people with very bad kidney problems.
There's a fruit called Ackee that can give you hypoglycemia or even kill you if not ripe or not prepared correctly. But apparently it's popular with Jamaicans.
Grapefruit interacts with many drugs - it can make many drugs way more effective than expected.
Starfruit (carambola) has significant amounts of oxalic acid which can give kidney patients problems.
And there are still very many fruits which while might be commonly eaten have not had much research done on them on their health effects and nutritional values.
Lastly, I wonder how the laser etching would look like on a whole durian or a rambutan
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm Jamaican and enjoy ackee :) The fruit is poisonous if eaten at the wrong time. You need to wait until it opens naturally on the tree before harvesting. Once prepared, it looks a like scrambled eggs and tastes somewhat acrid. Traditionally it's eaten with salt fish or bacon, biscuits similar to buttermilk biscuits, or with a vegetable called "breadfruit".
Grapefruit and starfruit are also very popular in the Caribbean. I never got the hang of durian fruit :D.
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Re:Lecture Fruit! (Score:5, Informative)
>> Grapefruit interacts with many drugs - it can make many drugs way more effective than expected.
> Please elaborate. Please!
My daughter had a liver transplant as a infant. She takes a single immune suppressant drug now called "Prograf" or known as Tacrolimus. The only warning on it is "Don't eat grapefruit while taking this." It makes the immune suppressing power much stronger.
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What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Insightful)
The process must be approved by the FDA. You can be sure they will ask all those questions and some you haven't thought of.
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:4, Interesting)
The process must be approved by the FDA. You can be sure they will ask all those questions and some you haven't thought of.
I'm always very leery of that sort of assurance because I've heard very similar things from my own MP (I'm in the UK) and IME it invariably means "I have so much blind faith in the system that I'm not even going to take your query seriously enough to forward it on to the relevant people".
And it later transpires that the relevant people had not thought about it...
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm...You're right, we can't trust the FDA. We should rely on the geniuses of the Slashdot community instead. The ones who can read the summary and immediately come up with 10 or a dozen weaknesses that the professionals who've been thinking about the problems for years have somehow overlooked.
We should set up a vote. You know, take the top 10 highest-modded questions or something.
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Insightful)
This might be anecdotal, but I used to work for a big pharma company. We (or at least all of the people I encountered there) were terrified of the FDA.
The FDA were reputed to be extremely thorough, and generally uncorruptable (the FDA is a sprawling bureaucracy, which though inefficient, seems to prevent any widespread corruption).
The media might not have picked up on it, but the American pharma industry is hurting pretty badly right now, as many of the expected "blockbuster drugs" from the past few years didn't make it through the FDA's thorough approval process, while many of the existing big-profit drugs are about to lose their patents (which, in the US only takes about 7-12 years from the date of first sale).
In America, you can create Mickey Mouse, and profit from your invention for a period of time double that of the average human lifespan. However, if you cure cancer, you've only got about a decade to reap the profits.
I'm not going to apologize for all of the pharmaceutical industry's actions. However, it's very important to view behavior in the context of the regulatory environment in which they must exist.
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If the pharma industry is really hurting (Score:5, Funny)
can't they just take something for the pain?
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm waiting for the mandatory notice that the laser-charred fruit contains substances known in the state of California to cause cancer.
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Funny)
I live in New Jersey - I couldn't care less if it causes cancer in the state of California.
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Informative)
A CO2 laser has a wavelength of 10600 nm (i.e. pretty deep into the infrared). I'm not seeing any specific reactions or chemical absorbers in the literature on a quick check, nor would I expect to - a single photon of 10600 nm light contains far too little energy to break any bonds. Instead, when the photon is absorbed it makes the molecule vibrate a little, and the kinetic energy is transferred to the surrounding water (or other) molecules as heat energy. This is where the misconception stems from that IR = heat; heat results when the photon of IR light is absorbed, but a photon is a photon is a photon... Basically, the color change is going to be a burn pattern, so there's nothing to fear from it over and above any concern you'd have for cooked fruits (e.g. pie filling).
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Re:What does this do, chemically? (Score:5, Interesting)
And did you not actually read the article? That issue was addressed within it.
But then again, this is slashdot so, who am I to expect people to actually read the article prior to commenting on it?
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An answer in search for a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm, never? Because I always wash my fruits (as in apples, pears) first before eating them?
This is an answer in search of a problem: To be honest, I'd rather have a blemish-free apple, than one with carvings.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I compost all of my fruit, and this will be great, as fruit like bananas and oranges will no longer generate any waste I can't compost.
Re:An answer in search for a problem? (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously? You are worried about a couple of grams of stickers that come on a few hundred or thousand grams of fruit? You could probably eat bananas for a year and still fit the stickers inside your nose.
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Re:An answer in search for a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you expect me to just take your word for that?
I'll report back here in one year.
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Re:An answer in search for a problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even stupider, they're talking about laser etching on citrus fruit. You peel those fruits before you eat them (well, most people do). There are no stickers inside the fruit.
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Re:An answer in search for a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
TFA shows that it works on delicate fruit like tomatoes too. In terms of heal and sanitary concerns the laser is probably still better.
1. A sticker when placed will be a nice breading gown for bacteria. Then the sticker is often pealed off after the fruit is washed.
2. Who knows what chemicals are left behind on the sticker.
3. When pealing off the sticker people use their fingernail. Even when they wash their hands the fingernails tend to have the most bacteria on them.
4. Stickers get toss into the garbage. Or worse if you are eating on the run just littered.
5. Pealing off stickers on some fruit can tare off the skin of the fruit.
6. Stickers that fall off fruit could mean be misplaced, wrongly priced at checkout.
I for one welcome or laser etched fruit overlords.
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Re:An answer in search for a problem? (Score:5, Funny)
1. A sticker when placed will be a nice breading gown for bacteria. Then the sticker is often pealed off after the fruit is washed.
My eyes, my eyes! Spelling! Punctuation! Please, tell me that English is not your first language... otherwise I hope you're still enrolled in English 101.
But on the bright side, you win Google Golf for "breading gown" [google.com].
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Re:An answer in search for a problem? (Score:5, Informative)
2. Who knows what chemicals are left behind on the sticker.
4. Stickers get toss into the garbage. Or worse if you are eating on the run just littered.
There are no chemicals. The stickers are made of starch, are printed on with edible dyes and are stuck on the fruit with a thin layer of glucose. They are in fact perfectly edible and biodegradable. It's quite possible laser etching (by heating the fruit) will produce more dangerous compounds. Frankly, this isn't even a problem, people just like the lasers because they look cool.
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Re:An answer in search for a problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Last time I checked (in my lab yesterday afternoon) most lasers don't take much energy to run at all. My Nd:YAG pulsed laser is pretty beefy (Class IV, back of the envelope calc puts the intensity at 100 MW/pulse) runs on 110/120/220 V wall power, 50/60 Hz, and only pulls 10 amps. That's my big laser... then there's my two laser pointers that are run by AAA's or the little watch batteries, and have powered times in the hours range. Looking on the Coherent website (first one I came to) I see CO2 lasers with a "marking" application that use 12A power average (from a DC power supply). So, the power requirements are certainly no worse than that of the labeling machine that has to apply the stickers, and given the higher speeds possible for laser printing vs mechanical printing the throughput might make them far more efficient.
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Boon! (Score:5, Funny)
This is particularly good news for me, because I can only eat foods that have been etched with a laser. Goodbye scurvy!
Dude (Score:5, Insightful)
For a technology site, most of the comments here are surprisingly anti-technology.
A new graphics card comes out? Commentors will gripe that old school games with shitty graphics are better anyway.
A new CPU comes out? Same thing : commentors will complain that extra CPU power is just more cycles for crummy, inefficient programming to squander with useless eye candy features.
A laser that eliminates that annoying plastic label on fruit and the FCKING ARTICLE says that it's safe? Commentors say that THEY won't benefit because THEY always peel and wash their fruit, and they're afraid that the lasering will make fruit decay sooner (without reading the article that says the lasering does not appreciably damage the fruit's skin)
Re:Dude (Score:4, Funny)
Arrogant tech nerds (myself included) are often suspicious of change. There's something just so satisfying about being able to say "Nuh uh, you're wrong!" or otherwise indulge in world-weary cynicism.
Besides, I like to think of Slashdot as being populated almost entirely by Andy Rooney.
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Re:Dude (Score:4, Insightful)
I gotta tell ya, "beach" is funnier. The mental image of bloated slashdotters flailing their useless arms about, stuck on the border of land and sea, loudly complaining about fruit labeling improvements that have literally zero downsides is difficult to suppress.
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Finally. (Score:5, Funny)
I don't want to know where it comes from . . . (Score:4, Funny)
. . . I want to know if it tastes good.
Fruit should be lasered according to how it tastes: "Good", "Great!", "Sweaty Tennis Socks", etc.
And you think it will just be for labeling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once this is in use, I don't imagine it will be long before your fruit is covered with more ads than a NASCAR racing suit. On the up-side, the opportunities for a bit of creative pranking are just about limitless.
Deep Thoughts (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Our fruits do not need labels.
The labels on fruit in the UK supermarkets are there so the cashier knows what you've chosen. The labels on the apples I eat say "Granny Smith 4139", the cashier types in "4139" before weighing the fruit.
They are annoying -- especially if they leave a residue, as I don't normally have a chance to wash an apple before I eat it -- so perhaps this is an improvement, so long as it doesn't affect the taste.
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Informative)
...as I don't normally have a chance to wash an apple before I eat it...
As someone who has worked in produce (college job, not now) I have to say that I am appalled whenever I hear this. The residue from the sticker is the least of your worries, there could be all kinds of other residue on that apple that you don't know about (not that though, that's only cucumbers). At least try to rinse them off, if you can't give them a decent wash.
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:4, Funny)
Did she have any news about Ferris?
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Informative)
The labels aren't advertisements. they have a 4 or 5 digit code on them which is used to identify what kind of fruit it is specifically. The prices for honeycrisp apples is different from fugi apples which is different from gala apples (the price difference is pretty large between different varieties). The clerks at the store aren't knowledgeable enough to tell the different of the 10 or so varieties of each kind of fruit sold to tell the difference. With the abundance found in wealthy nations comes a way to organize that abundance, and keeping things organized is what those labels are all about.
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also like to see where the fruit is from, possibly even identify the grower. There are three basic reasons:
1. I prefer to buy stuff grown close to where I live. My grocery store will generally include the country of origin in the signage, but I really don't trust that they get that right.
2. If there is some type of contamination problem, the CDC could more quickly track down the source and scope of the problem.
3. I might discover that some growers produce better or worse food than others. The information could help me spend my food dollars more effectively.
-ec
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Wrong problem (Score:4, Insightful)
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Envy (Score:4, Funny)
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