He said:The good people in marketing have been warming us all up for this one since they started making bowls out of bread.Bowls have been edible for some time now, and it was only a matter of time before other packaging would be manufactured for the purpose of consumption. The idea is that if people are eating their coffee cups, there is no garbage, and no garbage is a good thing. The biggest concern when it comes to edible packaging is exactly how edible these containers will be. Apparently the packaging is made from the same kinds of polymers used to cover pills, but companies have been known to introduce all kinds of crazy chemicals into our foods and maybe our packaging. Some popular sports drinks include ingredients like petroleum. Do we trust our drink cups to be freer of toxins than what we're actually drinking? Will the contents of the package be subject to a nutritional facts sheet?And these edible package manufacturers want to take things a few steps further than just soup bowls, coffee cups and freezie packages. They see all packaging being edible as the only way to make the process of delivering a product to a consumer sustainable. Go buy four sleeves of golf balls, and come back with a snack for the round. Wouldn't that be a great thing to do to your buddy on the first tee? Crack open a sleeve of balls, throw them in you bag and then start devouring the empty sleeve. You could buy a new shirt, and then remove the tag and put it on your sandwich.We are incredibly frivolous with our resources, and I would love to reduce the amount of waste we create. The edible packaging solution does have its limitations, however. People can probably wrap their heads around coffee cups and dissolvable drink powder shells, but when it comes to chowing down on a parcel that came in the mail, we may all have to draw a line. -Jordan BakerShe said:I'm really grossed out by this idea. I like to throw away packaging. I don't buy foods so I can eat the wrap it comes in, even bananas, which arguably have edible packaging naturally. It's just gross.For some reason, the idea of eating the packaging of food makes me think of Babybel cheese. I love these circular cheeses. They are adorable and delicious. But I never want to eat the weird, red packaging that surrounds their cheesy goodness.My main issue with eating packaging comes from my dislike for germs. It seems disgusting to eat the wrapper of something that has sat on a store shelf and been handled by dozens of people on its way into my dinner. That's like pealing the skin off an apple and passing it around to a group of strangers before finally eating it. Gross. No thanks.If the packaging is durable enough to survive shelf time in a grocery store, why would I want to put that in my body? Doesn't sound very healthy to me.The only reason I can find to eat the packaging of food is that it'll stay out of landfills, and over-flowed landfills are undoubtably a problem.I admit that I do like the prospect of fewer items landing in the dump, but my disgust toward eating germs wins out in the end. No, thank you. I'm actually going to rub some hand sanitizer into my hands now, because of how grossed out I am.-Tonaya Marr
