The Power of the Pecan

Achyut Adhikari has spent his career exploring how to make fresh food safer without the use of synthetic chemicals. An associate professor at Louisiana State University’s School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, he’s interested in sustainable alternatives, solutions that tap into natural compounds to reduce microbial risk.

For over a decade, Adhikari has focused on an overlooked agricultural byproduct: the pecan shell. “We’ve been treating pecan shells as waste,” he says, “but they’re actually an u…