Upcycling Food: A Growing Environmental Trend
Taking something that no longer has any use and giving it a second life or new function isn't a new concept. But upcycling aims to transform any waste into something more practical, valuable, beautiful, and even more delish than previously intended.
Upcycling is not the same as recycling. Consumer materials such as paper, plastic, metal, and glass are broken down to their base materials and remade into new, often lower quality products. When you upcycle an item, you re-fashion it or repurpose it using the same materials or components from the beginning. The goal is to create a better product or match the same quality as the original. Upcycled foods are made from the ingredients that are usually discarded once the originally intended recipe is complete. Upcycled foods are further processed with new recipes and reduce food waste to help feed more people.
At a cacao farm in Costa Rica, the cacao fruit is used almost in its entirety to create a new brand of chocolate called Candid. The Candid team has found a way to use part of the fruit that is traditionally thrown out. They essentially extract the pulp from the fruit and remove it so that they can make chocolate and then reincorporate the pulp as the primary sweetener.
Rise is a company that collects nutritious scraps that are otherwise thrown away during food production to make flour. Their team creates flour from breweries that produce dozens of malt barley barrels on average per week which are normally discarded. This discovery has led them to help people create baked goods that have twelve times the fiber, two times the proteins, and one-third of the carbs.
About 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year around the globe. The Upcycled Food Association is a non-profit focused on reducing food waste by growing the upcycled food economy. The association represents more than 140 businesses across 20 countries and with more than 400 upcycled products on the market, consumers still don't know how to identify them. On Earth Day, their team will unveil a new label that will soon be seen on shelves nationwide to help identify all of these products. This is a great time to support one of these earth-conscious brands by visiting your local market and keeping an eye out for the new label. Each purchase helps this concept continue to grow and help our environment.
