| I haven't seen you for a bit, Marie. |
| No. I've been busy with my project. |
| You're making a vegan alternative to eggs, aren't you? |
| Something that doesn't use animal products? |
| Yes. I'm using chickpeas. |
| I had two main aims when I first started looking for an alternative to eggs, |
| but actually I've found chickpeas have got more advantages. |
| But how about your project on reusing waste food? |
| You were looking at bread, weren't you? |
| Yes. It's been hard work, but I've enjoyed it. |
| The basic process was quite straightforward: |
| breaking the stale bread down to a paste then reforming it. |
| But you were using 3-D printing, weren't you, to make the paste into biscuits? |
| Yeah, I'd used that before, |
| but in this project, I had time to play around with different patterns for the biscuits |
| and finding how I could add fruit and vegetables to make them a more appetising colour, |
| and I was really pleased with what I managed to produce. |
| It must've been a great feeling to make something appetising out of bits of old bread that would've been thrown away otherwise. |
| It was. |
| And I'm hoping that some of the restaurants in town will be interested in the biscuits. |
| I'm going to send them some samples. |
| I came across something on the internet yesterday that might interest you. |
| It was a company that's developed touch-sensitive sensors for food labels. |
| It's a special sort of label on the food package. |
| When the label's smooth, the food is fresh |
| and then when you can feel bumps on the label, |
| that means the food's gone bad. |
| It started off as a project to help visually impaired people know whether food was fit to eat or not. |
| Interesting. |
| So just solid food? |
| No, things like milk and juice as well. |
| But actually, I thought it might be really good for drug storage in hospitals and pharmacies. |
| Right. |
| And coming back to food, |
| maybe it'd be possible to use it for other things besides freshness. |
| Like how many kilograms a joint of meat is, for example. |
| Yes, there's all sorts of possibilities. |
| I was reading an article about food trends |
| predicting how eating habits might change in the next few years. |
| Oh... things like more focus on local products? |
| That seems so obvious, but the shops are still full of imported foods. |
| Yes, they need to be more proactive to address that. |
| And somehow motivate consumers to change, yes. |
| One thing everyone's aware of is the need for a reduction in unnecessary packaging |
| but just about everything you buy in supermarkets is still covered in plastic. |
| The government needs to do something about it. |
| Absolutely. It's got to change. |
| Do you think there'll be more interest in gluten- and lactose-free food? |
| For people with allergies or food intolerances? |
| I don't know. |
| Lots of people I know have been buying that type of food for years now. |
| Yes, even if they haven't been diagnosed with an allergy. |
| That's right. |
| One thing I've noticed is the number of branded products related to celebrity chefs. |
| People watch them cooking on TV |
| and then buy things like spice mixes or frozen foods with the chef's name on... |
| I bought something like that once, but I won't again. |
| Yeah I bought a ready-made spice mix for chicken |
| which was supposed to be used by a chef I'd seen on television, |
| and it didn't actually taste of anything. |
| Did the article mention 'ghost kitchens' used to produce takeaway food? |
| No. What are they? |
| Well, they might have the name of a restaurant, |
| but actually they're a cooking facility just for delivery meals. |
| The public don't ever go there. |
| But people aren't aware of that. |
| It's all kept very quiet. |
| So people don't realise the food's not actually from the restaurant? |
| Right. |
| Did you know more and more people are using all sorts of different mushrooms now, |
| to treat different health concerns? |
| Things like heart problems? |
| Hmm. They might be taking a big risk there. |
| Yes, it's hard to know which varieties are safe to eat. |
| Anyway... |