https://scroll.in/latest/846884/106-year-old-fruit-cake-found-in-antarctic-hut-is-almost-edible-say-researchers http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2017/08/10/after-106-years-in-antarctica-fruitcake-still-looks-like-new.html https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/tunedin/106-year-old-antarctic-fruitcake-still-looks-edible/vi-AApQodU
I have my doubts about this... Fresh fruitcake isn't edible. Second how can they tell it's that old? Fruitcake is hard as a rock when new and the stuff refuses to rot so it could be any age....
This was probably intentionally left. It lasts and preserves forever and could save someone's life in such an inhospitable climate.
Reminds me of something. My granddad once threw out a fruitcake that his sister-in-law brought by one Christmas. She wasn't the cleanliest of people and he didn't trust any of her food. Anyway, he threw it over the fence in his back pasture where his cows were. I was walking back there quail hunting when I saw it from a distance. Accustomed as I was to stepping over cow shit the thing looked just like a pink cow pile. I was thinking what the fuck? One sick cow dumped that thing. Once I got closer I realized what it was, but I was still befuddled.
This can lead to insights for food preservation. The amount of food being wasted around the world is colossal. As per research studies, roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted. Food losses and waste amounts to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialized countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries.One ton of food waste prevented can save 4.2 tons of CO2 equivalent. If food waste were a country, it would be the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the U.S. and China. Excess food can be stored and preserved in bases in the Antarctic free of cost, which can be used by personnel over there, and also can be used in times of famine in parts of the world. This also prevents its decomposition or rotting creating greenhouse gases.
The waste is a byproduct of scientific advances as well as distribution cycles. If it were all left up to "nature" we would have the potential for cascading delivery failures that could lead to localized famines. By producing too much, this is averted. It's similar to 20th century machine shops that ran continuously so that backlash didn't have to be figured, a potential risk to production. In some ways we have become too efficient for our own good.
The methane from food waste in land fills can provide electricity for thousands of homes. Depending on the size of the landfill of course. Antarctica is one of the coldest, driest, and uninhabitable land masses on the planet. Decomposition can take centuries.