It may be delicious and healthy, but fruit is fickle too, often going bad irritatingly quickly in the fridge. Now, researchers in Thailand have developed an invisible, edible coating made with cannabidiol (CBD) that can preserve fruit for much longer.
We’ve all experienced the disappointment of bringing home a punnet of strawberries only to find that the ones on the bottom have already gone off. In recent years, to try and solve this issue, researchers have investigated a variety of edible coatings in order to try and give fruit a longer shelf life without affecting their nutritional value or taste - and now scientists have added CBD to the list.
CBD is a non-hallucinogenic compound in cannabis, and it’s increasingly finding use in medical realms for treating anxiety and other problems. And, among its potential benefits, recent studies have found signs of antimicrobial activity, and it is this aspect that caught the eye of scientists in Thailand.
To test the coating’s preservation abilities, the team placed treated and untreated strawberries into open plastic containers and kept them at fridge temperatures for several weeks. And sure enough, the CBD-treated berries decayed far less over 15 days than the naked ones.
With further study, this new coating could be useful in reducing food waste. Shockingly, the developed world throws away approximately one third of all its food, so anything and everything that can be done to reduce this is very good news. The CBD coating solution could be applied to other fruit as well as different types of food prone to spoilage.