And the dish ran away with the spoon

 

At our farmers market in Oakland, Blue Chair uses metal spoons for tasting, which they collect and wash every week. (Side note, the Blue Chair preserves are really delicious--worth checking out if you're in the neighborhood). However, most of our favorite frozen treat shops still rely on the traditional plastic tasting spoon.

Enter EcoTensil, the fast-composting, flat-packed, paper spoon. It's not suited for your tomato soup and grilled cheeses at home. But it's perfect for tasters at the ice cream shop or anywhere there's a need for single-use spoons. 

Business 101 lesson: I don't know the details of this "aha!" moment, but EcoTensil is pursuing a secondary market of prisons and psychiatric facilities. This is a problem I haven't really thought much about, but it makes perfect sense: In a place where even a plastic spoon can be shaped into a weapon for harming oneself or others, a paper spoon is a great solution.

 
Images from EcoTensil. Via Cool Hunting.

Food for thought

The PCRM (Physicians Center for Responsible Medicine) created this graphic comparing the federal subsidies for food production and the nutritional recommendations, aka, the famous food pyramid. The graphic is from 2007, but the Treehugger article has some interesting follow-up information on what's happened with government policy since then.

Infographic from PCRM. Via Treehugger.