Is It Possible To Turn Bread Back Into Usable Flour?

Morning
Report

University of Auckland students
and a food upcycling company have turned old loaves of bread
back into flour and then back into homestyle
baking.

While the flour is a product of Rescued
Kitchen, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
senior lecturer Febelyn Reguyal told Morning Report
that the students analysed the environmental impact from
the raw materials extraction of the leftover
bread.

“They collect the leftover bread at the
supermarkets, and then what they do is put it in a dryer,
mill it, and then eventually you will have your bread
flour.”

The drying process is very energy intensive,
so the students recommended to the upcycling company that
improvements could be made, Reguyal said.

Bread is one
of the most wasted foods in the world, according to a study
in the US National
Library of Medicine, which estimated 24,000 tonnes of
manufactured bread was binned each year.

The bread
that was used in the experiment had to be of a certain
standard – therefore mouldy bread was off the
cards.

“That’s one of the requirements for the Rescued
Kitchen because it has a short life, and sometimes we also
overproduce the bread. We cannot use the bread that has
already been consumed at home as the leftover bread, it has
to be the clean and unused ones.”

The students
presented their life cycle assessment reports to Rescued
Kitchen co-founders Diane Stanbra and Royce Bold.

The
reports concluded that rescued flour offered major
environmental benefits compared to regular flour – using
less water, land and fossil fuels, and producing much lower
carbon emissions.

Rescued Kitchen’s bread flour has a
shelf life of two years, freeze-thaw stability and complete
substitution potential. And its capabilities have already
been put to the test.

“Rescued Kitchen has already
made some recipes and they also brought some products to the
university and shared them with students. They had sweets as
well as savoury muffins,” Reguyal said.

“They’re
amazing. And I think all the students, including myself, I
enjoyed the food brought by Rescued
Kitchen.”

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