Eat Your Trash

People making pigs of themselves, that’s just what it looked like on TV.  The news showed customers in a fast food restaurant scarfing down their burgers without taking off the wrappers. Even Mr. Piggie would snorfle his way to the burger first, before eating the wrapper.

But no! Have faith in your fellow creatures. The restaurant, Bob’s Burger’s in Brazil, had developed an edible wrapper for their burgers. What’s it made of? A rice paper of sorts, a technology that has been around for centuries. I had just written about Wiki Cell, which is developing edible membranes for yogurt and ice cream, even a grape membrane to hold wine, but none of these are quite on the market. And here is Bob’s in Brazil already living the dream and having their customers eat their own trash. No worries about recycling or disposal, both of which takes considerable energy to transport and process. Here in Gloucester, it would even help solve litter in the streets, what with the battalions of seagulls watching our every move, just waiting for us to drop some food. Toss an edible wrapper by the side of the road — gone!

Then I find out that, yes, the burger wrapper was real, and totally edible, but that it was a promotional stunt to show customers ripping into their fully wrapped Bob’s Burger.  Sadly, the wrappers will only be used only as long as the ad campaign. But it’s a start. One day a campaign, the next, we’re choosing a cheddar-flavored wrapper to go with the bacon burger. No extra charge.