Eat This Spoon

Imagine you’re at a picnic, enjoying some spicy noodles and fruit salad. For dessert, you have a slice of cake. Then you top off your meal by eating your fork.

- Elizabeth Preston

That’s the vision of an Indian company called Bakeys. They want to replace plastic forks and spoons with ones made out of food. This could cut down on how much plastic people use and throw away. Someday spoons might even come in your favorite flavor.

Use It and Lose It

How much plastic have you thrown out or recycled today? Did you use a water bottle? A drinking straw? A grocery bag? A candy wrapper? Every year, Americans toss out around 35 million tons of plastic. Most goes into landfills, where plastic doesn’t break down for a very, very, very long time. Some finds its way into the oceans, making huge patches of floating plastic trash.

Out of all the plastic waste in the world, Indian chemist Narayana Peesapaty was especially worried about plastic utensils. Peesapaty worked hard on projects to help farmers and the environment. He also knew that Indians throw away 120 billion plastic forks, knives, and spoons every year. He thought there must be a better way. Why not make them out of food instead?

In 2006, he started experimenting with ways to make edible spoons. His wife, Pradnya Keskar, was his partner and “spoon taster.” In 2011, Peesapaty opened a spoon company called Bakeys.

A Spoonful of Sorghum