Hasta La Ideas

…and Mustard!

“Use a knife!”
“Smack the 57!”
“Hold it at a 45-degree angle!”
Ketchup eaters have long been giving and receiving such advice on the art of beckoning their beloved condiment from its bottle, but thanks to the Varanasi Group at MIT, ketchup lovers will no longer lose the battle. Though the technology behind LiquiGlide is still being tested, the results so far are extremely promising. The nontoxic coating works not only on glass, but also on plastic, metal and ceramic. Made entirely from food materials, LiquiGlide is completely safe to eat. “Even if you scraped the coating with a knife and ate it, it would be completely harmless and flavorless.”

You may be asking yourself what the big deal is. It’s just a little ketchup (or mayo, mustard, sriracha, jelly…), right? LiquiGlide actually solves a much larger problem than making it easier for you to dress your burger: food waste. “With condiment bottles there’s still a bunch of food left in the bottle when you throw it out. By our calculations,” the Varanasi Group explained, “about one million pounds of food gets thrown out each year worldwide. Also, those squeeze bottle need a big cap. By eliminating the need for such a big cap we’d save 25,000 tons of petroleum-based plastics each year.” And you won’t have a fridge door full of bottles with gummy, sticky caps. Watch the weirdly gross and entertaining side-by-side demo videos of regular condiment bottles vs. those coated with LiquiGlide.

(more…)