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Despite food shortages worldwide, a culture of waste pervade the U.S. and Britain

In the current climate of rising gas and food prices, it should stand to reason that people would find ways to change their most wasteful habits. According to new research from the UK, we need look no further than our own refrigerators. Fully 18 percent of all food purchased for household use in England and Wales is thrown away. The number is even higher for families with children at 27 percent. A now four year-old study of similar measure in the U.S. puts the American number around 14 percent, with nearly half of all food readied for harvest never making it to a dinner table. It is hard to imagine that just two generations ago these numbers would have been unthinkable.

While some measure of food will always be ruined due to environmental factors on its way into the market, much of the food wasted on tables in the UK and the U.S. is due to poor planning and over-purchasing on the part of consumers. The effects of all that waste reach far beyond a monetary loss on the consumer’s end; when the packaging, shipping, production, and waste management costs are factored in, the overall financial consequence skyrockets. What was most illuminating to the researchers was that ultimately the problem is a cultural one. We have grown accustomed to an uninterrupted bounty and the economic impact has not yet grown severe enough to change peoples’ habits significantly.

Via BBC

Nanotechnology in food could be the cure-all we’ve been searching for. But is it safe?

Steve Boggan has written an excellent article today in the Guardian on nanotechnology and its implications in the industrial food market. The first five paragraphs are as good a primer on nanotech as you’re likely to find—send this one to your mom if she has any questions. The rest of the article is a closer look at its future in our food supply, particularly in light of consumers’ recent widespread distaste for genetically modified goods. The bottom line: the industry is outwardly hopeful about the technology’s promise, but inwardly cautious about the public response. Oh, and we have no idea what it’ll do to us when we eat it.

As in other areas of nanotech, the practical applications for food are still in their infancy, i.e., it’s not yet actually in any food. It does, however, already appear in certain pesticides as a more efficient delivery system. The chemicals used are those already approved by environmental regulations. The industry claims the technology allows the concentrations to be lower while killing more effectively, without any added side effects.

As for side effects in food when that day comes? We just don’t know. Industry claims the microscopic size of these agents means the particles will degrade more easily. Food safety experts argue that miniscule size also means they could end up and accumulate anywhere in our bodies. It is clear that the safety issue is of utmost importance and demands thorough research. As Boggan concludes, however, that may prove ultimately to be of secondary consequence. If consumers don’t balk as they did with GM foodstuffs, nanotechnology could be on your table sooner than you think.

In the kitchens of today’s cutting-edge chefs, food processors share prep space with appliances straight out of the lab. See our gallery of the most extreme kitchen tech—as well as some more accessible gizmos for the home chef

A kitchen equipped for “molecular gastronomy”-gourmet cuisine as cooked by Mr. Wizard, basically-is all about the tech. Devices that wouldn´t be out of place in a chemistry lab fill the kitchens of some of the world´s most adventurous chefs, enabling far-out dishes like whipped-cream pancakes, lobster sorbet (shells and all) and meat-flavored mushrooms. Wiley Dufresne, head chef at one of molecular gastronomy´s Meccas, WD-50 in New York City, is so protective of his machines that he wouldn´t allow them out of his kitchen to be photographed for this piece, insisting that we get our own. And so we did.