Have you ever thought of baking a pizza in the oven without removing the package. The film that covers the pizza is made of tomato and other vegetables, when heated, will be incorporated to the pizza and becomes part of the meal. Brazilian researchers (from Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply), have developed an edible plastic film which can be produced from several types of food, like fruit, vegetables, and spices. The research was conducted in the nanotechnology laboratory of the Brazilian Corporation of Agricultural Research.
This material already exists and was developed by researchers at Embrapa Instrumentation (SP) which made edible films of different foods such as spinach, papaya, guava, tomato and many others that can be used as raw material.
Key Features of the product:
- Instead of petroleum, this new material is made of spices, fruits and vegetables. Among the raw materials already used by them are beets, papaya, passion fruit, guava, spinach, and tomatoes.
- Moreover, they are also helping to reduce food waste by using the overly ripe produce that otherwise would most likely end up in the trash.
- The new material combines the flexibility of synthetic plastics with the nutritional properties of the produce.
- The film can conserve food fordouble the time of conventional plastic, and it is also three times more resistant.
- The “plastic” isedible and biodegradable, since it decomposes within three months and can be even used as fertilizer.