03 March 2012

Food that Lasts Longer than We Do

TIME's cover story this week is 10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life which provides a short article regarding each idea. My favorite was #5: Food that Lasts Forever



Of all the ideas, I thought this was the most engaging because it involved Twinkies and bread pudding (seriously). Did you know that NASA created a bread pudding that can last up to 4 years? Yeah, that's right. You'd only have to buy bread pudding once in bulk every 4 years and although that's rather fascinating, it's also a tad revolting. Sure, it's really cool that it can last a really long time, but it makes you wonder how it's even possible... Scientists as the Pentagon even made a sponge cake that can stay springy for up to 5 years. This, my friends, is what scientists do in their spare time. They bake. 

mmmmmm... cake
Now, you'd think that these unnaturally long lasting foods would be chock-full of preservatives, but there's a pretty cool new technique used to keep food fresh. This method, called high pressure processing (HPP), applied 87,000 pounds of pressure per square inch of sealed food to instantly kill all bacteria. HPP even helps food taste exponentially better than foods preserved using traditional methods.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to try NASA's bread pudding and the Pentagon's sponge cake... It may just be that I'm rather hungry right now, or that I love desserts, or maybe I just want to test their baking skills to see how good they really are.

Damn, now I really am craving sponge cake.

Until next time,
J

P.S. Despite the expiration date on SPAM, it actually lasts quite longer than the two year expiration date... it's more like over 10 years. That's crazy!

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