Fresh Takes on Fighting Food Waste

Would you buy a dozen eggs and smash four, or open a carton of orange juice and pour nearly half down the drain?

Surely not, but we do something similar every day. Consumers and suppliers waste up to 40% of the U.S. food supply, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But across Maryland’s campus, a multidisciplinary crop of researchers is exploring innovative ways to prevent this loss on farms, in stores and at home. Here are a few to chew on.

A team of UMD food science and engineering researchers collaborated to develop a spray-on layer for produce based on chitosan, a material harvested from crab and shrimp shells. Still in testing, it forms a “nano-crystal layer” to protect the produce, and also fights spoilage with antimicrobial copper. And when you’re ready to slice a strawberry, it rinses off easily and, best of all, pulls away chemical fertilizer and other residues.

Learn more: go.umd.edu/shellfish-fresh

The gaseous hormone ethylene helps plants grow, ripen and eventually, spoil. Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics Professor Caren Chang studies how plants use the substance, and says controlling it is a top priority in agriculture. “Ethylene is the reason that ‘one bad apple spoils the whole bunch,’” she says. Consumer understanding of “ethylene signaling” between plants can help you segregate fruits and vegetables for optimum freshness, for example adding a brown banana to help ripen a bag of avocadoes. On the other hand, keep your perfect pears away from overripe produce or cooking smoke if you don’t want to see them turn into a pile of mush.

People have preserved meat from prehistoric times by cooking it, but the process is not ideal for storage and saps vital nutrients. With their new “flash heating” technique that lasts just one second and reaches 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit, UMD materials science and engineering and nutrition and food science researchers can preserve meat at room temperature for days without spoilage. The process they devised results in a sterilized layer of meat the thickness of a hair, sealing in freshness.

Learn more: go.umd.edu/flashheat