Edible Water Bubbles

A year or so ago there was a video trending on social media depicting this new, edible water “bottle.” Now, bottle may be a bit of a misnomer since these consumable hydration blobs are little more than a couple tablespoons of water at most, but my interest was still piqued.

The rough idea behind the creation was to create a sustainable alternative to the ever-wasteful plastic water bottles by packaging potable water in an entirely edible film.

I like the idea. I mean, I love the idea, being personally opposed to the horrendous amount of plastic waste we produce. But, more than that, I was pumped to find out that these curiously gelatinous blobs were actually something I could concoct at home. So you better bet I hopped on Amazon and ordered the two alchemic ingredients–sodium alginate and calcium lactate.

That was months ago…

And today I decided to have a go at my scientific experiment. I followed some painless instructions (way to go, Wikihow!) and created… well, I’d describe it as a water-filled, jellyfish-type mass. Or maybe a disturbing pile of semi-transparent offal. Either way, I ate some. And, having recognized the error in my preparation, went to work on the next batch.

FYI: If you’re trying this at home, do not drop or pour the sodium alginate solution into the calcium lactate solution. Instead, submerge it by the spoonful to allow it to form into a ball instead of a zygote-shaped snot glob. The balls are admittedly nicer to look at.

Home science experiments are fun as long as they don’t result in maiming or electrocution. And I’m happy to report that neither occurred today. My opinion on the edible water bottles, though? Meh… They are more or less tasteless, but the film has the consistency of thick mucus and it’s hard to get beyond that unfortunate drawback. Also, each ball holds very little water, so if you have a thirst, you’ll be guzzling these snotty bubbles by the handful, assuming they don’t break en route to your mouth, because the membrane just isn’t as sturdy as it needs to be.

Still, hooray for science experiments!