Rutgers Scientist Develops Antimicrobial, Plant-Based Food Wrap Designed To Replace Plastic (rutgers.edu) 56
Aiming to produce environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic food wrap and containers, a Rutgers scientist has developed a biodegradable, plant-based coating that can be sprayed on foods, guarding against pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms and transportation damage. From a report: Their article, published in the science journal Nature Food, describes the new kind of packaging technology using the polysaccharide/biopolymer-based fibers. Like the webs cast by the Marvel comic book character Spider-Man, the stringy material can be spun from a heating device that resembles a hair dryer and "shrink-wrapped" over foods of various shapes and sizes, such as an avocado or a sirloin steak. The resulting material that encases food products is sturdy enough to protect bruising and contains antimicrobial agents to fight spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms such as E. coli and listeria.
The research paper includes a description of the technology called focused rotary jet spinning, a process by which the biopolymer is produced, and quantitative assessments showing the coating extended the shelf life of avocados by 50 percent. The coating can be rinsed off with water and degrades in soil within three days, according to the study. [...] The paper describes how the new fibers encapsulating the food are laced with naturally occurring antimicrobial ingredients -- thyme oil, citric acid and nisin. Researchers in the Demokritou research team can program such smart materials to act as sensors, activating and destroying bacterial strains to ensure food will arrive untainted. This will address growing concern over food-borne illnesses as well as lower the incidence of food spoilage [...].
The research paper includes a description of the technology called focused rotary jet spinning, a process by which the biopolymer is produced, and quantitative assessments showing the coating extended the shelf life of avocados by 50 percent. The coating can be rinsed off with water and degrades in soil within three days, according to the study. [...] The paper describes how the new fibers encapsulating the food are laced with naturally occurring antimicrobial ingredients -- thyme oil, citric acid and nisin. Researchers in the Demokritou research team can program such smart materials to act as sensors, activating and destroying bacterial strains to ensure food will arrive untainted. This will address growing concern over food-borne illnesses as well as lower the incidence of food spoilage [...].
Don't throw complex anti-microbials everywhere (Score:1)
This kind of shit just spreads resistance to every pathogen genome in existence.
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I wonder what "plant-based" really means. AFAIK, pretty much all plastics are plant-based since they are made from oil, which is basically rotted plants. Depending on how complicated the fabrication process is, the fact that you started with plants doesn't automatically mean it's healthy or good for the environment. You can make some really nasty stuff from plants.
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Ya beat me to it.
It doesn't matter where the wrap came from, it only matters if it's biodegradable and/or a source of pollution, ie. how many years will this stuff be around after people unwrap their sandwiches?
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What they say is "about 3 days in soil".
What I wonder is "how edible is it?", because if it's used the way they're talking about it's going to be used to wrap sandwiches, so washing it off isn't practical.
The basic idea is quite reasonable, though I think they're going overboard by touting it as antimicrobial. To make it antimicrobial all you need to do is ensure that the exterior surface is hydrophobic. The problem is if both surfaces are hydrophobic it doesn't degrade very well, and it's hard to make it
Re: Don't throw complex anti-microbials everywhere (Score:1)
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Some sort of paper was my first thought, but they wanted a spray-on technique. I do hope it's edible.
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You don't know that.
Can it be removed? (Score:2)
I'm not keen on eating anti-microbial agents.
Re:Can it be removed? (Score:4, Interesting)
I quite enjoy consuming certain anti-microbial agents, such as ethanol.
I also like thyme, citrus, bbq smoke, and vinegar. And some anti-microbe microbes such as lactobacillus, blue cheese (penicilium), and bread yeasts.
But I think TFA (which is behind a paywall that I can't access) is probably talking about transporting it. It dissolves in water, so it probably doesn't work on something like a steak, but more like something such as an avocado. I think the idea is to simply wash it off before using the food.
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Anything that's powerful and broad-spectrum enough to prevent food spoilage outright will probably wreak havoc on the intestines. The items you've mentioned are mild enough and, in the case of booze, may screw up your gut anyway. But hey buzzed is buzzed so some sacrifices have to be made.
If it can be safely washed off then great; sadly, the summary lists a sirloin as being one target application for the stuff.
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The items he mentioned are exactly the ones used in this coating. "The paper describes how the new fibers encapsulating the food are laced with naturally occurring antimicrobial ingredients -- thyme oil, citric acid and nisin." They're things we eat all the time. And what do you mean, "if it can be safely washed off?" It's right there in the summary: "The coating can be rinsed off with water."
Re: Can it be removed? (Score:2)
Did you really expect someone to read the summary before posting inane comments? Are you new here?
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In what concentrations?
Are you aware of what happens when you concentrate red rice extract? Same basic principle.
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For the benefit of those of us who've never even heard of red rice extract, what does happen when you concentrate it?
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Let me google that for you..
What happens when you concentrate red rice extract. [webmd.com]
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Nonsense. People have eaten honey containing beeswax since before they were people. Thyme has long been used as a spice. Etc.
FWIW, they're talking about washing it off before use, but I don't really think they can count on that happening. Still, any surface that's sufficiently hydrophobic is antibacterial. It doesn't kill the bacteria, they just won't grow there. Water soluble implies that at least one end of the molecules is hydrophilic, but the other end could be hydrophobic. It would be desirable
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note carefully the poster said "penicilium" and not "Penicillin ". And yes Blue Cheese has Penicillium roqueforti [wikipedia.org] which is different than Penicillium chrysogenum [wikipedia.org]. And while Blue Cheese does not contain antibiotics like Penicillin, it does have significant antifungal properties. Thus making it an anti-microbial.
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You mean it's not the same allergic reaction. I would bet that there are people who are specifically allergic to blue cheese.
Something else that works (Score:1)
One thing we've been using for a while to good success is bees wax wrappers. They are kind of like a stiff waxy paper you can use in place of cling wrap to cover bowls and things for the fridge, then kind of seal onto things with body heat.
They seem to work especially well wrapped around cheese blocks after you open then, it seems like we have much less mold and mold comes on much slower using this to wrap over plastic.
Which makes a lot of sense really as a to of cheeses come with a waxy coating, that is p
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: Now spraying sheet plastic directly on food (Score:2)
First, there are quite a few Chinese people, and quite large ones too. Since the food has become plentiful, Chinese are gaining length each year. Also, she might have been a child of a Chinese and Western couple. My friends married Chinese women and the children look Chinese but some are pretty tall. 170cm (5" 10) is not uncommon for women here, and they have the same length.
Give people better food, and they grow taller. And if you are genetically predisposed to being tall, well, you grow very high. Also, t
Bold choices (Score:2)
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Asafoetida. It's used as a spice in Indian cooking, but I've also seen humorous references to it being a key ingredient in the most powerful placebos in Western medicine because anything that tastes that bad must be good for you.
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Apeel (Score:2)
Can you eat it?
Something similar is already being done, https://www.apeel.com/ [apeel.com] its not like a shell/wrap though. This project will run into problems in the 'is it safe for people to use at home' department.
We already had this (Score:3)
Nano-structure cellulose that bacteria can't proliferate upon because it causes cellular membrane rupture on contact.
Things like meat come packaged in nitrogen to stop most of the bad bacteria from even being able to reproduce. In that case, plain plant-based cellulose plastics exist and are enough for the application.
Re: We already had this (Score:1)
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We have it with silver embedded - same thing!
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It's possible that the niche feature of this is that it's made from food waste.
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Things like meat come packaged in nitrogen to stop most of the bad bacteria from even being able to reproduce.
Wrong. Meat comes packaged in nitrogen so that you can't tell when it's elderly. It still goes bad, but it doesn't change colors, so it looks like it's still fresh on the shelf, and they can still sell it to people who want fresh meat.
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I love having food warehouse storage certifications.
https://www.generon.com/using-... [generon.com]
There you go.
Get ready for.. (Score:2)
Get ready for the $20 avocado - it'll last twice as long tho!
Seriously? (Score:2)
"Like the webs cast by the Marvel comic book character Spider-Man, ..."
This seriously offended me (no, I'm not kidding). Is there really a need to always dumb down the explanation of every freaking scientific advancement to a first-grade level like this?
Re: Seriously? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure their marketing didn't want sentences like this: "the packaging is similar to the webs spun by the Black Widow, from its rear sphincter."
Is it cheaper though? (Score:2)
That's the big question. Nobody cares about a material that is massively more expensive to produce. Or even the same price. There is an enormous amount of infrastructure invested in plastic that becomes useless if we switch, so there needs to be an incentive.
And frankly, I don't trust government ones. The voting public doesn't give a crap about anything but bread and circus, and vote anyone who works for humanity's long term self interest out of office as soon as they're asked to do nearly anything.
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who is working for "humanity's long term self interest"?
Not the Biden admin, throttling fossil fuel when there is no alternative infrastructure built out, that just makes shortages and high prices worse. No plan, no direction, no competence... they and their false "greenness" do need to be voted out.
If we had an administration serious about environment and carbon pollution there would be plan, and in fact near term massive fossil fuel use to bootstrap the green alternative, whether that be square miles of
I am not vegan! (Score:2)
Leather bags?
I did a 180 - This guy is like Buckaroo Banzai (Score:3)
I did a 180 after looking into it. At first I thought, "No fucking thank you! I do not want to have cobwebs all over my produce!" And, well okay I still would be repulsed if it really looks like that. But I think pullulan is actually what those Listerine film things are made of which dissolve on your tongue. Apparently pullulan was liscensed from Japanese company Hayashibara for those. I guess if it was like that and tasted like thyme I wouldn't even mind just eating a vegetable still covered in it even. Might be hard to avoid adding taste to some produce I suppose. Also, while there are a number of people on the team this guy Kevin Kit Parker is fucking impressive... a national treasure. I mean, everything from DARPA and counterinsurgency to tissue engineering, fashion and BBQ he's like Buckaroo Banzai only like, more! So I am guessing the fashion sense side has avoided any publication of what the cobweb stuff looks like now and hopefully they will become nice glossy thyme-flavored films we can apply with a spray like Pam. Maybe your lunch bag will be lined with something like nori dried seaweed with a ginger / myoga / yomogi antimicrobial Japanese flavored infusion, who knows! :) https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/... [harvard.edu]
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FYI he taught a BBQ class at Harvard, and became a Kansas BBQ judge. They built a smoker based on engineering analyses, and the iOS app is on github.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazet... [harvard.edu]
https://www.bostonmagazine.com... [bostonmagazine.com]
https://github.com/jerrychangu... [github.com]
It's (allegedly) scalable, so maybe! (Score:2)
A lot of scientific headlines are all about stuff that only works in a lab setting but this may actually "have legs". One of their focuses was to makes something that was a "scalable technology". The interesting part is that they are utilizing food waste to make it. I suppose the issue now becomes more about logistics rather than the science.
This is a very interesting advancement. Let us all hope it leads to something.
Is this even a real issue? (Score:2)
The article keeps using fruit as an example for reasons unknown.
Fruit is not transported wrapped in plastic, it is transported in gigantic boxes, then put on the grocery store shelf, then bought. There is no plastic involved whatsoever. Yes some fruit gets damaged/bruised during transport, but either the grocery store uses that for an in-house preparation (ie, fruit cups), or they donate it, or discard it. It is not a large enough portion of food that they have considered the extreme processing costs of wra
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I think you're wrong, or at least often wrong. I don't know how it's transported, but apples, e.g., are often covered with a thin layer of wax when one buys them.
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Re: Is this even a real issue? (Score:2)
How is this product supposed to solve clamshells???
Kind of weird to name drops steaks. (Score:1)
So, if I cover food on a plate and microwave it, (Score:2)
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It's so great (Score:2)
It's so great it will be 100% forgotten next week.
Normal (petrochemical) plastic is plant-based (Score:2)
Just very old plants.
Just saying.
Also the term, "plastic" is an adjective, (or is short for "plastic material"). It describes a material that exhibits plasticity, and applies to the new substance too.