By: Yi Qi
On Friday, June 10th, 2022, researchers at the University of Tokyo found a way to change food waste into edible cement.
The University of Tokyo team of chemistry is taking things a step further in reducing food waste by not only turning food scraps like fruits and vegetables into something useful but also by keeping them in an edible form.
Researchers have succeeded in giving certain foods (like banana peels, onions,
orange peels, tea leaves, coffee grounds, and pumpkin) a new life. Cabbage leaves have the best output of the foods studied, forming a material almost four times stronger than regular cement.
The first step in this process is to dry the fruits and vegetables in the sun. Then they are crushed into powders! After that, the food powders can be put together with water and seasonings, then pressed into a mold at a high temperature to make bricks. The results were variable (some materials had a higher bending strength than concrete), yet all remained edible and retained their taste.
“The researchers in Japan also say it can be turned back into food. All you have to do is break it up and boil it!” the NewsRoom Team stated. “Unlike cement, the edible alternative is biodegradable. This means that it would take up less space in landfill compared to cement.”.
A hard worker of this cement, Professor Yuya Sakai from the University of Tokyo, said “that the process of creating the cement could be used to make temporary housing that can be eaten if a disaster happens. For example, if food cannot be delivered to evacuees, they could eat makeshift beds made out of food cement.”
Link: https://newatlas.com/materials/food-scraps-recycle-material-stronger-concrete-edible/`