Title: INQUIRY: "Best before..."
Course: GG 22/23 Leuphana-Copy > Section: 2.3 Food // Local

You may have heard about this before: millions of tons of food are wasted all over the world. If you want to know why, have a quick look at the visual guide "Produced but never eaten" from the British newspaper "The Guardian".

One reason is that in industrialized countries many types of food are marked with special labels like "best before ..." / "Mindestens haltbar bis ..." or "use by ..." / "verbrauchen bis ..." to inform people about recommended usage. Many consumers think that food has to be thrown away immediately when the "Best-before-date" has arrived to avoid an upset stomach from spoiled food. But this date is only a recommendation. Many groceries will be fresh much longer and can be eaten without fear of food-poisoning.

Unfortunately, there are known cases about supermarkets relabeling the best-before-date when some goods fill the shelves for too long. Look at this report by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (video) to get an  impression - this can happen in many countries.

Well - what can we do to indentify and save as much "good" food as possible, better feed the world and add to the reduction of the carbon food-print?

As we do not have a sophisticated laboratory at home to test our expired food, we should collect and exchange experiences among family and friends and train our senses to judge if something can (still) be eaten or better not. And we can go on further and develop means to keep food fresh longer or to make the best use of food that is already on its way to deterioration.

Your Goal

- Work on practical and reliable recommendations on how to avoid food waste.
- Train your senses, experiment, invent.
- Test your outcomes with family, friends, neighbors

Materials

You will need food of all kinds stored in- and outside the refrigerator, all kinds of kitchen equipment, and the support of a curious, adventurous and patient family. This study will take time.

Method(s)

The problem of food waste is huge and multifaceted. Here are some starting points for your investigations. Feel free to find your own:

- How long are different kinds of food really consumable without bad taste or/and harm for your health? How does this relate to the "best before"- or "use by"-recommendation?
- What kind of environment is ideal to keep food fresh?
- What do you see, smell, taste, feel when a special kind of food is too much deteriorated?
- What is your body's reaction to not-so-fresh food?
- What are limits to your adventurous experiments? What would really harm you? (Think of smelly meat with a greenish look - no, no, never!)
- What about ideas for "waste-cooking"? For a start, try to freshen up old, hard bread and to make it delicious again.
- Perhaps you get interested in food preservation. Try salt, sugar, oil, vinegar, heat. Why does this work? And how is it done best?

Doing scientific inquiry

For this task we suggest that you dig into an inquiring and inventing process as do scientists and engineers. Compared to most of your school experience this learning situation is open and risky. Your teachers do not know the outcome - they certainly know more about the scientific background and can support you with some tips, but what you will find out is not written in a study guide.

You have to do the thinking on your own, preferably in a small group for mutual support and different competencies.

To make sure that your work is scientifically correct, follow these basic rules:

- Formulate some suitable assumptions/hypotheses first. They should reflect your knowledge from daily life and common experience and will help you to stay to your question.
- Determine the variables which are involved in the investigation or experiment. To study their contribution to the experiment, change only one variable at the same time. You need patience for such a process!
- When you are on a good way, repeat your experiment several times. As you work in reality, there are many sources for errors. Make sure that your outcomes are reliable.
- Make the conditions of your experiment fair. That means for example: use always the same brand of yogurt if you test different temperatures or places in the fridge.
- Don't be afraid of failures and flops. Accept detours as enrichment. Don't stop out of disappointment. Take a break... and start anew.