Eating a packaged food without even discarding it, safely consuming even the FILM that wraps it to protect it from the outside environment. That’s the prospect opened up by a new food packaging material developed by Peggy Tomasula and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, among the innovations presented in Philadelphia where the 2016 Meeting of the American Chemical Society opens today. The 100% edible SKIN of the future is made of milk protein, specifically casein. Its inventors guarantee that it is durable, effective as a barrier to prevent oxygen and contaminants from passing through the package, and can be consumed safely because it contains no substances hazardous to health.
Currently tasteless, the product can be fortified with flavorings as desired. And if needed, vitamins, probiotics and nutraceuticals could also be incorporated into it. Designed for use in the form of a FILM, it could actually also be used as a spray directly on food: sprayed on cereal flakes or bars, for example, it would make them more ‘waterproof’ so they would be crispier even once soaked in milk. Research co-author Laetitia Bonnaillie explains that her group is developing a prototype of the new packaging for a small Texas company, but that the idea has attracted the attention of several companies. The team intends to continue working on the new material to improve it as much as possible, and expects to be able to launch it on the market soon: arrival on the shelves is expected within 3 years. Milk protein packaging would bypass a whole range of limitations of traditional films, its creators point out. Indeed, the plastic products available today are neither recyclable nor biodegradable.
Moreover, if particularly thin they are not infallible in averting spoilage of the food they wrap. Some, then, are suspected of releasing risky molecules into food. The new material could also be used as a replacement for the coating substances used in pizza or other take-out food packaging. Especially after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently banned the perfluorinated compounds used to line these boxes. “The applications of our packaging are potentially endless,” says Bonnaillie. Researchers initially tried to produce it from pure casein. However, the result was a material that was yes tough and capable of effectively blocking oxygen, but tough and quickly dissolvable in water. So they refined the ‘recipe’ by adding citric peptin, to make the FILM more resistant to moisture and high temperatures as well. After a series of further improvements, here is the finished product: a wrap as thin as classic films, albeit less elastic, and better at stopping oxygen infiltration. Edible packaging already exists commercially, but it is made of starch and therefore very porous and less protective.
Images : Ansa.it
Text from : meteoweb.eu
