“Cutting food is a delicious way of saving money, helping to feed the world and protect the planet.” — Tristram Stuart, author of ‘Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal.’
The world is threatened by several unique problems. Some of these problems — like natural disasters — can not really be prevented because they are almost entirely random.
However, some problems threaten the world that we bring upon ourselves. One classic example of these self-inflicted problems is food waste, a major contributor to world hunger.
You probably knew that already but here’s the interesting part:
In the same way, we created these self-inflicted problems, we can solve them. We can get a lot closer to minimizing food waste by trusting in freeze-drying technology.
In this post, we’ll discuss two things — the impact of food waste and how freeze-dried fruits (and food) are a big part of the superhero squad that eventually defeats the evil food waste giant.
Wait… How much food actually gets wasted?
The results of research conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) pegs the amount of wasted food somewhere around 1.3 billion tonnes. To put that in context, that is around one-third of global food produced for human consumption.
Food waste gets even worse when you compare the statistics between wealthy countries and poor ones. People in rich countries waste up to 222 million tonnes of food every year in a world where the total food production in Sub-Saharan Africa is 230 million tonnes. We’re not the greatest mathematicians but the numbers show that the food waste in rich countries is enough to double food supply in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Financially speaking, the value of global food waste is worth more than $1 trillion. And, more than three-quarters of that amount stems from food waste in developed countries.
The not-so-subtle impact of food waste
Of the 7.9 billion people who walk the Earth, at least 820 million of us do not have enough to eat. In other words, if you randomly select ten people from around the world you’ll find one person whose biggest worry is food. This is the basis of world hunger.
The truth is:
Our inability to curb food waste is blocking food from reaching those who need it the most because there’s enough food produced around the world to feed 10 billion people.
We only need half of the food wasted to solve world hunger and that takes massive concerted efforts from every human being. The change we seek starts from the acceptance of our responsibility to reduce food waste and our openness to try effective ways to store and preserve food.
One such effective preservation technique is freeze-drying.
How the freeze-drying technology can reduce food waste
Freeze-drying food used to be something reserved for only the cool kids in NASA — which is everyone there, to be honest. Freeze-dried food was originally only available to astronauts, but the technology for making it might just be the solution to global food waste.
Rather than waste, we can store
Freeze-dried fruits have an incredible shelf life. On average, many common fruits will not last longer than a month once they’ve been harvested. While some of these fruits get eaten, up to half of these fruits get wasted — unless they are freeze-dried.
Using the freeze-drying technology — through a process called sublimation — fruits lose virtually all their moisture. Moisture is one of the biggest causes of food spoilage and the absence of it can do wonders to the shelf life of fruits. Moistureless freeze-dried fruits can actually last up to 25 years. Imagine how much fruits we can save from waste!
Instead of letting these fruits rot, we can preserve them for extended periods and enjoy them sometime in the future.
Reducing food waste in transit
There’s a lot of food that gets wasted in transit. Much of this ‘transit’ waste occurs in restaurants and supermarkets that cannot simply provide effective cold storage for all the fruits they get.
Freeze-dried fruits solve this aspect of food waste because they do not need refrigeration to stay fresh — and they can weigh between 70-90% less than fresh produce!
Using non-controversial methods
Freeze-dried fruits contain no chemicals. This makes them a good fit for fruit lovers who’d rather have no fruit than have one containing artificial additives.
Parting thoughts
Reducing global food waste may be a burden too heavy for most of us. But, reducing how much food we individually waste is certainly within reach.
With freeze-dried fruits, we can store food for as long as we want and still get the same fresh nourishing taste when we finally decide to eat them.
Here at MarsRoots, our goal is to provide you with all sorts of freeze-dried fruits to help you reach your nutritional goals without contributing to global food waste.
In a way, one freeze-dried fruit after the other, we are changing the world!
One Last Thing:
If you’ve ever wondered what astronauts eat, or whether space food is really different from what you enjoy on Earth, check our Amazon page HERE and test it yourself! Don't miss the opportunity to taste real astronaut food.
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