Good for the Gut [food - waste

Abstract

Researchers are finding innovative ways to recycle discarded food waste to create prebiotics. There is some evidence that pectin oligosaccharides, which have been produced from carbohydrates extracted from certain food waste such as potato peel, could be used to make a prebiotic - but so far it has only been done on a small scale within a lab setting. Food waste is a problem of supersized proportions. One third of the food we grow - 1.3 billion tonnes - is wasted. Not only is this shameful when 690 million people go to bed hungry every night, but it also produces an estimated 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Turning our noses up at leftovers is part of the problem. The priority is to minimise waste, by eating wonky veg, for example, or redistributing surplus food to hungry people, or animals if it is of lesser quality. But the bulk of wasted food doesn't even reach our plates. Some food is inedible because it has gone off, become contaminated, or is an inedible by-product of the food industry such as onion skins. These products are then either recycled for fertiliser, burned for energy, or simply go to landfill. But thankfully, there's appetite for a new solution to address food waste: recycling that retains the value of food molecules so they can still provide nourishment.