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What if you could eat your daily serve of vegetables in ice-cream form?
Key points:
- Vegetable powder developed from food waste has been used to flavour ice-cream
- The vegetable gelatos were on show at a fresh food conference in Adelaide this week
- The vegetable powder is made from "ugly" fresh produce discarded due to imperfections
Where a scoop of ice-cream could have the equivalent nutritional value as a dinner of cooked broccoli.
Vegetable waste company Nutri-V has come up with an innovative solution to increasing the appeal of vegetables that also tackles the mounting issue of industry food waste.
Nutri-V chief executive officer Raquel Said, says about 20 per cent of all fresh produce grown in Australia is thrown away before it makes it into the marketplace, but much of that could be turned into powder.
"They're either too big, too small or they have a blemish on them. So they're perfectly nutritious and there's nothing wrong with them," she said.
Through research and development corporation Hort Innovation, the company has come up with its solution of vegetable ice-creams with flavours ranging from pumpkin, gingerbread, cauliflower, and vanilla bean.
"They've just been presented in the form of an ice-cream to enjoy, so it's innovation at its finest I think," she said.
"They certainly do have a sweet touch and to me the vegetable flavour is slightly detectable so you know it's there and doing some good but not too much,"
Each scoop of ice-cream has half a serve of vegetables and has the same nutritional value of cooked vegetables.
"The cooking process does tend to transform them further … our vegetable powders have got the efficacy of having cooked broccoli at home on your dinner table," she said.
Vegetable-boosted plain flour could be next
Other vegetable-flavoured ice-creams are in the works, depending on whether the waste products are appropriate for drying.
"I think once you get that vegetable [drying] format right your opportunities are endless," she said.
"Whether you're using a spoonful at dinner time in your bolognese sauce because you're trying to hide a scoop of veg or scrambling them in with your eggs.
"We're certainly not replacing fresh vegetables; it's just how do you take someone from 3 [serves of vegetables] to 5 serves or 4 to 5 serves per day for example.
"If we can help them through a pantry staple like flour or ice-cream or bread or other food manufactured products we might be able to shift the dial."
Hort Innovation chief executive officer Brett Fifield said the vegetable ice-cream was innovative in reducing food waste and encouraging people to eat more vegetables.
"Research shows that 96 per cent of the population do not eat the recommended amount of vegetables each day; which is five to six serves," Mr Fifield said.
"Ice-cream is a popular dessert, why not get a health boost through it?"