individually wrapped and padded produce by oceandesetoiles, on Flickr
A recent article over at The Atlantic about food packaging caught my eye. It starts out with the oft-discussed problems of food packaging: how to create a method of food packaging that protects food for longer times, mechanical handling and further transport without creating a nuisance in the landfill or increasing our dependence on fossil fuels. One possible answer, the author poses, is edible food packaging.
The article takes a sharp turn, though, and raises very serious questions about the form this edible packaging will take. Will the American public be made aware that the packaging they are expected to eat contains nanotechnology? Will proper testing take place?
As Geoff Fary, of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, explained on Australian television news, “We just don’t want to take the risk of having these particles released in industry in a fairly unregulated way, only to find that we have reaped an awful harvest 30 years down the track.”
Does all this sound unsettlingly familiar? It should.
Even now, with almost 90 percent of U.S. soy, corn, and cotton grown with genetically modified seeds, skeptics maintain that a creepy technology has been shoved down our throats without proper oversight.
Consider, also, the food safety angle. The more hands processing a food, the more dangerous it tends to be. So your apple leaves the orchard and instead of being shipped to a store distribution center, is sent to a packaging facility. That’s one more step, and several more hours to days of freshness loss. The edible packaging is applied, and the food leaves the processor for the store distribution center. From there, the apple follows the normal course of preparation for sale, with multiple stops and manipulating hands along the way. Even once it reaches the store, unpackers, produce managers and other consumers handle this packaging. And you are going to put that in your mouth? Would you lick the outside of a bread wrapper?
Have you ever heard someone sneeze in a produce department? Okay, the food scientists will say, we’ll add a germ-killer to the packaging. Even if someone sneezes on our food packaging, the germs won’t survive because our super kill-em-all package will render them harmless. Feel better? I don’t. That kill-em-all tech is going into my mouth? My stomach? My gut? What about the good bacteria that lives inside me to help me digest and fight hostile germs? Will that be killed off, too?
Surely, not every food producer will have their own edible packaging facility. This is one more tech that needs to be centralized, thus increasing the danger of terrorism and insecurity to our food supply.
If you hear the caution in my writing, you are hearing correctly. Nanotechnology makes me extremely uncomfortable. Rather than going the route we took with genetically modified foods (that is, “Hey, why not?! Looks good to me!”) to find that we have unleashed a genie into the world we can’t force back into the bottle, we need to approach this new technology with great respect and excessive testing performed by disinterested third parties. That last part is crucial.
In the meantime, while scientists and researchers whose pockets are lined with cash from nanotech companies perform the most possibly skewed testing, throw out negative results and push this new tech into our food, may I offer a suggestion? If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you already know what I’m about to say:
Know your farmer, know your food
Eat food without packaging that you purchase from a source known to you personally. Or, if you’re really a crazed radical (wink, wink), why not try growing your own? Think you don’t have room? How about some inspiration from this Urban Organic Gardener?
I’ll be keeping an eye on the nanotech scene, so drop by again if you’re as fascinated as I!
And if you don’t know why I’m so up-in-arms about nanotech, here are a couple of my past posts on the subject:
Nanosilver: In with the old, in a new way
Lung damage from nanoparticles
This post is part of Fight Back Friday, hosted by Food Renegade.
6 comments
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February 25, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Greenearth
Understand why you are getting upset. It has potential risk for users. I think I will be sticking to my local farmers market and health supermarket where I can still use brown paper bags.
February 26, 2010 at 12:19 am
Natural Health Goodies
Yah, that does sound a bit scary, plus like you said I don’t plan on licking any bread bags any time soon. Although wouldn’t it add a bit more fiber in people’s diets if everyone ate their cereal boxes along with the cereal?
February 26, 2010 at 8:03 am
localnourishment
More fiber and probably better nutrition overall!
February 26, 2010 at 12:23 am
Maggie
You know, I had been sort of thinking lately that it would be good if the mainstream grocery stores were more on board with real foods because I have a hard time envisioning residents of larger urban areas all being able to “know their farmer.” BUT, as I was reading your post here, I remembered something I read several years ago about London’s minifarms- local community gardens that include animals. What I read was that it was estimated that if need be, London could produce something like 70% of its dietary requirements based on the existing infrastructure of community farm-gardens. If they can do that in London, we should be able to do that here. Although, eating an entirely local diet would mean that, for example, people in the midwest would get no seafood, which is almost a crime against humanity.
February 26, 2010 at 8:09 am
localnourishment
It would be very different if we all had to rely on our local food systems, wouldn’t it? Personally, one food I go way out of my “local” commitment for is Pacific salmon. Atlantic salmon doesn’t even come close.
One interesting thing I learned gardening was to look at the latitude of different places. London is about the same latitude as Prince Edward Island, isn’t it? No more available light, but local gardens thrive. True, the climate is significantly different, but just in light availability it’s about the same! I think if pressed, Americans could do much better providing for themselves than we do. We’ve sacrificed so much at the altar of convenience.
February 27, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Anna Salvesen
About 95+% of the produce my family consumes comes via our CSA box subscription membership. It’s grown locally (we live in coastal San Diego County and the growing season is year-round there there is a surprising amount of seasonality to the produce); the certified organic farm fields and orchards are all located within the county and not more than 70 miles away (some fields are less than half that distance). Most of the produce is picked within 12-24 hours of delivery to the box pickup locations.
The big sturdy waxed produce boxes that hold each CSA “share” are flattened, collected, and reused over and over. Until just last week, many delicate individual produce items (lettuce, herbs, greens) were each packed in very thin plastic produce bags (tissue thin) to maintain moisture and freshness, some were packed in brown paper bags, and other study items (butternut squash, limes, firm avocados, etc.) were loose in the box. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes always were packed in recyclable plastic pint boxes (they make great germination “greenhouses” too). I often was able to reuse the plastic bags again for other uses before discarding or recycling. The system worked well to protect the contents, but both the farm and some CSA members were continually discussing ways to reduce the amount of bags without compromising the produce.
Last week our box items arrived packed a bit differently; I think it’s a good compromise. A few items still either were packed in paper bags, plastic pint boxes, or individual plastic bags for the protection they provide, but the majority of the items (heads of greens, beets, cabbage, herbs) were in one large tissue-thin plastic bag that could be later recycled or reused as a refuse bag. At first, I was tempted to rebag everything with my own bags, but of course that defeats the purpose. So I rearranged fridge contents and cleared a shelf for the huge bag. I’m finding it actually works much better this way than filling the produce drawer (now used for other items). The delicate items aren’t bruised by a full drawer opening and closing and it’s easy to find what I need when I open the big bag and reach in.
Edible packaging doesn’t appeal to me.