Can an Edible Spoon Save the World?

May 13, 2023

A DECADE AGO, Indian scientist Narayana Peesapaty set out to reinvent the humble disposable spoon. If we could eat our utensils after a meal instead of throwing them out, he figured, that would go a long way toward slowing the world's rising tide of plastic garbage. But first he had to work out a few baking problems. The spoons he was trying to create—mostly out of sorghum, a gluten-free, nutrient-rich grain—had to be thin enough to scoop up food and hard enough not to get soggy in hot soup or coffee. The pieces he was actually producing looked more like spatulas and cracked apart in the oven. Then, of course, there was the matter of taste: His spoons couldn't overpower the food they were serving up, but if they weren't appetizing enough, people might still toss them after use. When he tried putting sugar in the dough, the spoons swelled during baking and stuck to their molds. Adding garlic caused the molds to smell.

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