How do we lose 33 million years of life collectively each calendar year worldwide? Every year there are roughly 600 million cases of foodborne illness, resulting in 420,000 deaths. Of the affected, 30% are children under 5 years of age. Given these statistics, the WHO estimated that 33 million years of healthy lives are lost due to eating unsafe food globally each year, and this number is likely an underestimation.
With the loss of 33 million years of life, we may lose those who could have found the cure for cancers or world hunger; or championed world peace. Are these endeavors we want to go without solving?
Food safety, nutrition and food security are inextricably linked.Â
Safe and reliable access to food is the key to sustainable life in every corner of the world. So why do we still struggle to provide that to everyone, even in first world countries? We continue to throw out food that was fresh but became damaged in transport or storage. Even when it arrives to us how many times have we opened our fridge to fuzzy raspberries after just a day or two, or thrown out lettuce that you expected to last a week.
With that, we struggle to keep pathogens off our food once they leave facilities. After they’ve left the production or packaging facility, they may have only a few more hours of protection for post processing applications of preservatives and pesticides. Once this period ends, they’re easy targets for pathogens that may or may not have survived the process. Whether they survived the process or came from facility equipment some pathogens can take minutes, or even hours to explode around their target.
As of this moment there is nothing being done while our food sits in transport or storage, and how do we know it was kept “fresh” during that time period, how do we know that there was no tampering through that time period. We see most time it will rely on just the handing over of product with little to no documentation. While refrigeration may slow down the growth of pathogens, it’s not going to kill them. But what if there was a solution that not only could help preserve food through transportation and storage, but also kill 99.6% of the pathogen growth that takes place during this period.
With the use of EPIC’s modified atmospheres for cold storage, we now have an answer. Not only are we able to do something while our food sits in transport and storage, but we can also gain more years of knowledge, love, and family.
Many would expect the use of more harsh chemicals to keep food safe and preserved but that’s just not the case. Using O3, which is just two extra oxygen molecules we can do just that, but naturally. When O3 breaks down the by-product is the everyday oxygen we breath. Whether it’s sitting in cold storage overnight, or in transport we can run a process called low and slow. Low and slow means we can run low amounts of O3 for a long period of time or to reach a certain concentration. When that concentration is reached levels will decay naturally back into oxygen.
It's not out of reach anymore to improve our years through food safety in transportation and storage.
It’s not out of reach to save lives
https://www.who.int/activities/estimating-the-burden-of-foodborne-diseases [CM1]
