MIT Scientists Figure Out How to Get Ketchup Out of the Bottle

[A Guy]

According to Heinz, ketchup exits the company’s iconic glass bottles at an excruciatingly slow .028 miles per hour. In case you were wondering, that’s slower than a Galápagos tortoise, which, according the San Diego Zoo, creeps along at a relatively speedy .16 miles per hour.

What’s the cause of such lethargic condiments? That would be our old pal friction. Luckily for burger fans everywhere, impatiently tapping our ketchup bottles might be a thing of the past thanks to MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith.

Source

A Guy

 

[Night Hawk]

Just wait until some Liquiglide gets used and someone decides to slap a ketchup bottle! SSSSPLATTTT...!!! all over the place! You may just end up with a little burger + fries on the ketchup instead! :roflmao:

 

[seekermeister]

It kind of sounds like a high powered Teflon. I wonder if it is tough enough and would take the heat of cooking, so that pots and pans could be coated with it? The article doesn't give too much detail, but gives the impression that it is clear. If so, it wouldn't be bad for coating dishes, because it would make them easier to wash.

 

[Night Hawk]

It wouldn't be applied like teflon coated frying pans but used inside a large variety of containers.

Appetizing! This wonder material can be used to coat the inside of anything and is made from FDA-approved materials. Once applied, whatever’s inside — including ketchup, mayo or any other sauce — slides out effortlessly (see the videos here) with little residue.

Watch the videos to see the comparisons with ketchup in the first pair and mayonaise in the second to see how anything will simply ooze out.

 

[seekermeister]

I read nothing that said that it could or couldn't be applied to cooking utensils or dishes. I did find this comment, which implies that it probably will be used elsewhere:

LiquiGlide, a "super slippery" coating made up of nontoxic materials that can be applied to all sorts of food packaging--though ketchup and mayonnaise bottles might just be the substance’s first targets.

I hope that when they start using this, that they label the bottles to indicate that this is the case, otherwise, I might think that there is something weird about the contents.

 

[Night Hawk]

The way the article implies containers as well as the videos you would assume the first application would be for food containers not cookware. The article also mentions this as being FDA approved.

At some point some form of this or other material may eventually be developed you could subject to a heat source like a stove burner or oven that would replace teflon since that can be scratched up easily and isn't so non sticky as lead to believe.

 

[seekermeister]

I never meant to say that food containers wouldn't be first, but as you say, there may be seconds, thirds, etc.. On the surface, it seems to me that coating dishes with this is not all that much of a stretch...assuming that it has the toughness and endurance for the job, and it works on surfaces other than plastic.

 

[Night Hawk]

Actually it will depend on just how far they go in development. If the coating firms up like you would see with anything teflon coated it would have a wide variety of applications.

"alright.. who's doing the dinner dishes?!" "I will!" "I thought you said you said you were going to..." "done already! "

Of course the article was focused mainly on applying it to the inside of containers. With recycling you tend to see people forget(or not bothered with) rising out containers before tossing them into a recycle bin(Not trash). With less food waste "got to get that last drop out!" no bins that stink from food containers are another side benefit.

(plus the moms and pops out there will love not having to clean up a mess after the kids get into... everything!)

 

[seekermeister]

no bins that stink from food containers are another side benefit.

No problem with stinking containers, because I always recap the bottles before throwing them in the trash. The stink comes from when I "forget" to put banana peels, etc. in the trash, instead of the disposal.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

According to Heinz, ketchup exits the company’s iconic glass bottles at an excruciatingly slow .028 miles per hour. In case you were wondering, that’s slower than a Galápagos tortoise, which, according the San Diego Zoo, creeps along at a relatively speedy .16 miles per hour.

What’s the cause of such lethargic condiments? That would be our old pal friction. Luckily for burger fans everywhere, impatiently tapping our ketchup bottles might be a thing of the past thanks to MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith.

Source

A Guy

I don't like it.

It's going against nature. Gives me the creeps.

Ketchup is supposed to stick. If I want slide, I'll open a can of motor oil.

Leave it alone, fer krissakes. It's part of the ritual of eating hamburgers.

Don't you remember the immortal words:

Ketchup, Ketchup, in the bottle.
None will come, and then a lottle.

Is nothing sacred?

 

[Night Hawk]

I can just see you slapping a bottle of Heinz and stunned as more then just that little comes flying out? But that wouldn't happen with a ketchup bottle anyways with small opening in the cap! or the squirt tube at a burger stop somewhere.

Scrapping the inside of a jar for something like Mayo, jelly, peanut butter, or other food trying to get that last bit has always been a royal pain where this wouldn't be considered so much out of context by the majority of consumers these days.

That would be like saying you shouldn't be allowed to have a cordless headset or keyboard/mouse on your pc or cordless phone, texting, checking mail on your cell or smart phone, etc.. Those are all new compared to what Mr. Bell envisioned back in the 19th century. Yet who doesn't have something cordless, wireless these days?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Yet who doesn't have something cordless, wireless these days?

Is that a rhetorical question?

In case it isn't, the answer is me.

I own nothing cordless or wireless.

Never owned a cell phone. Made a call on one exactly once--a borrowed phone.

"Old school" to me means 1947 rather than 2006. Se habla Chance-Vought Corsairs and Colt 1911 .45 ACPs.

But help yourself to slithering food while I avert my eyes.

 

[carwiz]

In a year or two they'll probably find out the coating causes cancer in California.

 

[Night Hawk]

Yet who doesn't have something cordless, wireless these days?

Is that a rhetorical question?

In case it isn't, the answer is me.

I own nothing cordless or wireless.

Never owned a cell phone. Made a call on one exactly once--a borrowed phone.

"Old school" to me means 1947 rather than 2006. Se habla Chance-Vought Corsairs and Colt 1911 .45 ACPs.

But help yourself to slithering food while I avert my eyes.

You mean to tell me you never got your cordless remote when going to buy a new tv? shame on you! :roflmao:

In a year or two they'll probably find out the coating causes cancer in California.

If some enviromentalist group mouths off about this or that without any fact based info you would likely see some tabloid trash on it. The actual science however indicates susceptability to various forms of that disease is inherited in the genes.

I would tend to worry more about what goes into processed foods then a coating used for a food container however. They tend to stuff too much junk in and then call it a healthy choice?

 

[carwiz]

Ditto to that. I'm sure they'll still require a label on the bottle though--"Don't eat the package".

 

[Night Hawk]

You wouldn't eat teflon either but you will if you use any metal utensils like a spatula or large serving type spoon since metal will scratch and flake teflon particles off from the coating. Anything that gets into the food is generally only a very small amount that simply passes through the digestive tract.

The one question about this however is the chemical composition. Did it have it's roots starting off from teflon in making it more slippery or just what other it is derived from in order to be FDA approved?

 

[Borg 386]

Just what we need, another chemical in our food.

But then, as I saw somewhere: "Possibilities for diner pranks abound..."

 

[seekermeister]

Technically, it's not suppose to be in the food, just on the bottles. Of course, I would imagine that trace amounts do get into the food also.

 

[A Guy]

We'll all slide easily into our coffins

A Guy

 

[Night Hawk]

That sums it up! A Guy Our last will and ... food additive?! "Please remember to recycle containers on the way out!"