水果保鮮新科技，解決食品浪費(fèi)的利器

This tiny sachet the size of a sugar packet can be placed in a crate of fruit and it makes the produce last roughly three times longer than usual.

在盛水果的箱子里放一小包東西就可以使水果的保質(zhì)期比平時(shí)延長(zhǎng)近兩倍的時(shí)間，而這小一小包東西只有糖包那么大。

The technology, from a startup called Hazel Technologies, was created as a simple way to tackle one piece of the world’s problem with food waste.

一家名為Hazel Technologies的初創(chuàng)公司開發(fā)了這項(xiàng)技術(shù)，它是解決全球食物浪費(fèi)問(wèn)題的一種簡(jiǎn)單方法。

In the U.S. alone, each year, $218 billion is spent growing, processing, delivering, and throwing out 52 million tons of uneaten food, often because it goes bad before someone can eat it. Another 10 million tons of food never makes it off farms.

僅僅在美國(guó)，每年就有5200萬(wàn)噸未被食用的食物被扔掉，這往往是因?yàn)檫@些食物在人們食用之前就已經(jīng)變質(zhì)了，而種植、加工、運(yùn)輸以及扔掉這5200萬(wàn)噸食物要耗費(fèi)2180億美元。此外，還有1000萬(wàn)噸食物沒(méi)出農(nóng)場(chǎng)就變質(zhì)了。

“Agriculture is central to human existence, but despite that, we haven’t had nearly the same level of technological revolutions that we have in other world systems like energy or transportation or medicine,” says Aidan Mouat, the CEO of Hazel Technologies. “So I saw a real opportunity there.”

“農(nóng)業(yè)是人類生存的關(guān)鍵，但盡管如此，我們?cè)谵r(nóng)業(yè)上并未達(dá)到像能源、運(yùn)輸或醫(yī)藥等其他世界體系所經(jīng)歷過(guò)的技術(shù)革命而達(dá)到的那般水準(zhǔn)，”Hazel技術(shù)公司總裁艾丹·穆阿特說(shuō)道。“所以，我在農(nóng)業(yè)上確實(shí)看到了機(jī)會(huì)。”

Mouat cofounded the company as a postdoctoral student at Northwestern University. A fellow student and cofounder was studying a way to control the pathways that make produce ripen and eventually decay by mimicking the natural process; Mouat was studying the use of biodegradable, nontoxic materials that could control the same type of material. They decided to work together, along with a group of other students.

穆阿特是美國(guó)西北大學(xué)的一名博士后研究生，也是該公司的創(chuàng)始人之一。他的一位同學(xué)，也就是該公司的另一位聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人，通過(guò)模仿自然過(guò)程來(lái)研究一種控制作物成熟及腐爛途徑的方法;而穆阿特在研究用可生物降解且無(wú)毒性材料來(lái)控制同種材料的方法。之后，他們決定與其他同學(xué)一起合作進(jìn)行研究。

The sachet, one of the company’s first products, works by inhibiting ethylene, a hormone molecule that fruit naturally emits and that triggers the aging process.

該公司的首批產(chǎn)品之一就是這種小袋，它通過(guò)抑制乙烯來(lái)發(fā)揮功效。乙烯是水果自然釋放的一種激素分子，它能促使水果熟化。

It’s something that the food industry already tries to control—some storage facilities use machinery to filter ethylene out of the air or apply a coating to fruit or vegetables. But the tiny packets are simpler to use.

水果行業(yè)已經(jīng)在嘗試控制乙烯了，一些倉(cāng)庫(kù)使用機(jī)械來(lái)過(guò)濾空氣中的乙烯，或者用保鮮膜把水果或蔬菜包起來(lái)。但這種小袋用起來(lái)更方便一些。

A quarter gram of the material inside the packet can protect 50 pounds of produce. The chemicals are proprietary, but the company says that the sachet time releases them to help preserve the product.

小袋里四分之一的材料就可以保存50磅產(chǎn)品。這種化學(xué)物質(zhì)是專利產(chǎn)品，但該公司表示，這種小袋可以釋放這種化學(xué)物質(zhì)來(lái)保存產(chǎn)品。

Each fruit has a different package based on the ethylene sensitivity of the fruit. Other products might need different products entirely: berries need antimicrobials, for instance, but don’t have a problem with ethylene.

根據(jù)水果對(duì)乙烯的敏感度，每種水果都有不同的包裝。其他水果可能需要完全不同的產(chǎn)品：例如，漿果需要抗菌劑，而乙烯并不會(huì)使其腐爛。