Intelligent food expiry label could save tonnes of needless waste

theguardian.com

20 points·T-zex··7 comments

Better way to save tonnes of needless waste: intelligent consumer.

It really isn't difficult to inspect food to check if it's 'off'. Our innate senses are pretty good for that.

Good luck with that, many toxins are effectively undetectable by us human types. Not to mention that innate senses vary, not all persons have the same abilities.

Cf my main comment as well, of course.

I don't get it.

The gelatin is simply mixed to go off after a set number of days. How is that better than a label with a date on it?

> you’d measure how many days they’d last at the optimum temperature and match the gelatine formula so it would also last the same amount.

Because the gelatin will also respond to sub-optimal temperatures and spoil faster. Presumably this means you could reasonably set the gelatin tag to the actual point of spoilage for the product -- rather than the 'peak freshness' current 'use-by' dates usually represent.

Aaah, that makes sense!

If it spoils faster in the heat, that would affect both. Thank you!

Summary: Label contains a gelatin layer that degrades in roughly the same way as the food inside the package. If the label is smooth, the food is likely good; if the label is bumpy, the food is suspect. Designed originally for the visually impaired, the product has much wider application.

Cool.

Assuming the gelatin comes from animal sources (as it almost certainly does) this will present a bit of a conundrum for a lot of vegetarians, especially those who avoid farmed meat products for reasons of wastefulness.

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