Borrowing a trick from the Arctic snow flea could banish freezer burn
By Cliff Kuang Posted 05.09.2008 at 4:06 pm 4 Comments

Edible Antifreeze:  iStock/Getty/iStock
Putting food back in the freezer after it thaws causes ice crystals to grow, imparting the unwelcome crunchy texture and mildew-like taste of freezer burn. Now food chemist Srinivasan Damodaran of the University of Wisconsin–Madison has derived an edible antifreeze from papaya enzymes and gelatin. His concoction, which stunts ice-crystal growth, promises always-creamy ice cream and juicier T-bones, even after their third trip between icebox and table.

While studying gelatin, Damodaran realized that its protein is similar to the one that keeps the lowly snow flea from freezing in Arctic temperatures. To isolate the molecule involved, he mixed the gelatin with papaya enzymes, which are excellent at freeing proteins from other cellular material, and separated all the protein chunks by size. Then he mixed each batch with ice cream. The final step was to subject the dessert to a series of temperature changes until he found the one that remained ice-crystal-free.

Damodaran still wants to better understand how the proteins work, but a patent for the process is in the works. In a few years, ice cream with a beard of frost should be a relic.

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4 Comments

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allimar
05/10/08 at 6:54 am

So is this going to be used to freeze humans for long durations?

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Voices1776
07/08/08 at 8:15 am

Great to avoid freezer burn, let's put intestine extract on the food.

Gelatin is made from bone marrow, cartlige, and intestine extract. Yummy!!!!!!

They just keep creating crap to kill us. Notice the side effects are always worse than the illness.

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seogoogle
07/25/09 at 1:06 pm

why? when there are so many other choices.......still land will be destroyed to get the coal , people die mining it, water is polluted from mining......land is taken from people to get at it.......wake up people!! we are smarter than this most things we truly need are above ground just a little blessing from the universe and god!!!!!! Why do we feel the need too waste time.lives and money tearing things apart to find our answers....the world was designed perfectly , we have the sun , wind & water to obtain energy we can create hydrogen gas from water and as an added bonus we keep the beautiful mountains to visit with our children. Why do we cling to our destructive ways when we have better cleaner answers- this bs spreads money too thin and holds back real progress- sooner or later there will be no coal for anyone this is already known why not pretend this is so now and move on to better things oks?
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