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    Have Your Cake and Eat Its Package

    Scientific American – Mon, Jan 30, 2012

    Click here to listen to this podcast

    Picture an orange. It’s encased in a biodegradable shell—the peel’s even somewhat edible, as marmalade fans can attest. But we humans often package food in plastic, with its environmental and disposal challenges.

    So Harvard scientist David Edwards and colleagues thought, why not take advantage of advances in materials science to mimic nature? The call their result WikiCells. Edwards recently described the development in a talk at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. ["WikiCells: Bottles That We Eat"]

    Taking note of nature's clever packaging, Edwards and his team created a membrane made of charged particles of edible substances bound by electrostatic forces. The membrane surrounds a liquid, foam or solid food. Then that membrane is surrounded by an edible or biodegradable hard shell.

    The researchers are testing WikiCells at Harvard’s partner Le Laboratoire in Paris, where people are munching on containers of ice cream and soup. The technology is currently a bit of a novelty. But the scientists are working on shelf stability and taste to create a variety of consumer products. Maybe in the future you’ll be able to sip some juice, and eat the package. Of course, clam chowder served in bread bowls is already available in the Harvard area.

    —Cynthia Graber

    [The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
     

    Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
    © 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

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    3 comments

    • E
      E  •  3 mths ago
      biodegradable packaging is fine, but I doubt I would ever eat the packaging. The packaging is designed to protect the food from germs and dirt. So all the other people that have touched it, and the dirt on the shelves, would not be so tasty.
    • Intelligentdare
      Intelligentdare  •  New York, New York  •  3 mths ago
      i love to eat
    • Starch
      Starch  •  3 mths ago
      Sometimes, I fart into my hands to muffle the sound.
     Post a comment
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