I haven’t done any Food in the News posts lately, so I thought it was long overdue, and I thought this one was interesting! If you ever have any interesting Food in the News shoot me and email!
Cars of the Future Will Be Built With Food
And you thought filling up with a corn-based ethanol was a little crazy? Now auto makers are introducing earth-friendly and edible materials.
- Seaweed is being used by Toyota for improving its bioplastics(plastics made from natural sources such as corn starch) in hopes of creating superlight chassis. It should be on the road by 2020.
- Soybeans is being used in millions of vehicles from Ford. How? Soybean-based seat cushions of course! Manufacturing the cushions with soybean oil helps the company cut down on petroleum and CO2 emissions. Next up: interior trim made with soy-based plastic.
- Carrots are being used at England’s University of Warwick to build a race care equipped with a steering wheel made from carrots and other veggies. It reaches speeds of 135 mph and runs partly on chocolate waste from a nearby chocolate factory.
Article adapted from Food Network Magazine
What do you think of the food-mobile trend?
I think it’s great to use foods for something else other than eating—under one condition; that it isn’t using up the whole surplus of food meant for eating—we still have so many people in the world starving that could use some carrots or soy foods. I think that should be a priority before cars, but it’s still a cool concept as long as they don’t start using Larabars for brake pedals or an oat-weaved carpet…hey who knows?
p.s. Cha-cha-cha-chia! Do you want to jump on the chia seed bandwagon? Diane at Greens Plus offered to send all readers a free sample! Interested? Email her at diane@greensplus.com.
8 comments:
I think they should find a way to use up so much corn that we produce.
I haven't heard of them using seaweed though! kind cool!
this is so interesting! Definitely a great way to use excess food supply. I agree about the larabars hahah that would be a no no ;)
Interesting...wonder what that would mean for people allergic to soy and other things??? Maybe they should stick to other recycled materials?? It will be interesting to see what happens : )
If it's greener than using other materials I am all for it. However, the corn thing always bothers me because it reinforces our country growing only a few commodity crops rather than diversifying. I would personally rather our goverment subsidize organic and sustainably farmed foods than corn so we can keep junk food cheap.
oh i would love to drive a food mobile :) any chance they'll be powered my peanut butter?!
that's interesting about all the food uses. I think it's something to consider, but you'd definitely have to consider the effect that would have on everything else, too. Using corn in everything hasn't exactly done wonders for our country or economy, so it can definitely backfire, but I'll be interested to see what they come up with in the future!
WOW! This facts are so interesting. I just wonder who thinking to stick soybeans in a car for fuel! ! !
Very cool! I like the use of seaweed- totally makes sense!
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