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from the gives-new-meaning-to-"Who-cut-the-cheese?" dept.
Picture this: Three years from now, you open the fridge and unwrap a package of string cheese. You eat it. It tastes better, somehow, than the ones you ate as a kid. Then you eat the packaging. And your body thanks you for it.
That's the near-future envisioned by researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who are developing environmentally friendly food packaging made from milk protein, the American Chemical Society announced this week.
The material could replace the thin plastic film now stretched around blocks of cheese, packages of steaks and other foods at your supermarket. The kicker: This protein-based packaging isn't just biodegradable and edible – it keeps food fresher than plastic, too.
The film's protein, casein, bonds tightly, creating a packaging that's up to 500 times more effective than plastics at keeping oxygen away from food, researchers said. That means the packaging is better for the earth and better for your food, and it can be eaten, they said.
Dr. Laetitia Bonnaillie, a co-leader of the study, expects to see the casein packaging hit store shelves within three years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:43AM
Indeed. Biodegradable? Good. Edible? Silly.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday August 29 2016, @11:11PM
Yep. My first thought was really a memory:
Little boy in the grocery store wipes his runny nose and then grabs the package of string cheese only to be crying 10 seconds later when told no. String cheese put back on the rack.
Then there are studies about the amount of feces that are actually on the surface of our smart phones, tablets, and touch screen surfaces. I'm never eating the surface area of anything that spends that much time in so many different hands.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.