Don't forget to eat 8 glasses of water a day!

September 28, 2018 12:18 PM

Edible water bottles (video). Ohoo are little bubbles of water enclosed in an edible seaweed and plant membrane. Pop one in your mouth. Drink the water and eat or discard (biodegradeable) the membrane.
posted by If only I had a penguin... (36 comments total)

Looking at these things, the look so obviously like a choking hazard if one slides to the back of your mouth/down your throat. I mean by it's nature it would mold itself to the shape of the throat, right? but then again, I guess a bystander could just stick a pen/form/whatever in there and puncture it.

Also, I love that it only has a shelf life of a few days and they're marketing this as a feature (fresh!) not a bug.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:20 PM on September 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

Ohoo previously
posted by RobotHero at 12:24 PM on September 28, 2018

how do you carry them around without breaking them though.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:30 PM on September 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

and like. what kind of special fiddly packaging must they come in? sorry if this is covered in the video, it won't load for me in any browser.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:32 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

You don’t. Someone hands one to you as you’re running. Just like they would a cup of water.
posted by greermahoney at 12:32 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pepsi Goo
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2018 [12 favorites]

They don’t show any packaging. The market for this, right now, is just marathons. They were just sitting on a table for people to grab.
posted by greermahoney at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2018

I want the job of hurling space age beverage balls at marathoners, where do I apply.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:35 PM on September 28, 2018 [26 favorites]

i could totally see something like this being kinda rad for outdoor events like festivals and concerts. one of the saddest things about playing warped tour was seeing the 900000 discarded plastic water bottles (and sundry other trash) all over the field or whatever at the end of the day.
posted by capnsue at 12:36 PM on September 28, 2018 [12 favorites]

Wasn't a similar technology being used to create "candies" to help Alzheimer's patients hydrate?
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 12:58 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Dear Makers and Marketers of Ohoo:

Is... is seaweed not a plant?
posted by Caduceus at 12:59 PM on September 28, 2018

Algae are generally not classed as plants these days.
posted by tavella at 1:03 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Tired: Marathon water blobs
Wired: Marathon tomato-feeding robot
posted by GuyZero at 1:04 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Is... is seaweed not a plant?

no it is an aesthetic now

i'm sorry if it sounds like i'm making fun of this entire concept when that could not be farther from the truth. i want all of humanity to embrace this immediately, i want ohoos to hover around me, deliciously and thirst quenchingly, as i exist in harmony with this new world of beverage spheres, like zenyatta; my ult is a water balloon fight that i automatically win.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:05 PM on September 28, 2018 [16 favorites]

Wasn't a similar technology being used to create "candies" to help Alzheimer's patients hydrate?

Jelly Drops!
posted by elsietheeel at 1:18 PM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Incidentally, "Seaweed Aesthetic" is the title of my new sea shanties album. It's fun! It's better than a wet slap in the face with a cephalopod!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:20 PM on September 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

I too am curious how exactly these are to be transported, contained, and dispensed. Will I go to the store and buy a carton of these like eggs, or will they be on display for people to squeeze and prod like produce? Will I be at an amusement park and have these dispensed into my sweaty, greasy hands by a vending machine? Is there possibly a solution that doesn't involve just as much packaging as a water bottle?
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:21 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've always thought this technology made no sense because you would need some plastic packaging to keep the edible packaging sanitary. But at an event like this where you are serving finger food for people to pick up and eat or drink, it does seem like you could avoid wasting some plastic. I hope they can make it work.
posted by straight at 1:22 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Isn't this a food safety problem just like other cut fruits? If you eat the skin, you're eating the bacteria off the hands of the person who handed it to you.

Maybe there should be a peelable biodegradable skin, like an orange?
posted by blnkfrnk at 1:29 PM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

If they aren't consumed right away, they'll get as dingy as those wall-walker toys that lost their ability to cling as they became progressively grimier from children's fingers. Still, there must be some use for this, even just as a confection.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:32 PM on September 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

it could come with a straw like capri suns but that's just adding another wasteful problem.

i maintain that the obvious solution is the generation of small localized weightless areas surrounding the spheres.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:33 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Straws aren't wasteful if you make them from the hollow bones of your enemies.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:34 PM on September 28, 2018 [18 favorites]

(goes for chairs too so I hear)
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:34 PM on September 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

Algae are generally not classed as plants these days.

Well, shit. First I've heard of it. Research time!
posted by Caduceus at 1:56 PM on September 28, 2018

So they are like bobo, only larger and with water instead of fruit juice?
posted by elizilla at 2:00 PM on September 28, 2018

Straws aren't wasteful if you make them from the hollow bones of your enemies.
(goes for chairs too so I hear)

Straws made from chairs??
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:19 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

What about other possible uses of these things as biodegradable sauce dispensers, to replace those little single-serve cups of barbecue and ranch that fast food places hand out by the billions? That way the grossness on the exterior from being handled matters a lot less, as you'll be tossing the outside anyway (or munching a dirty ranch-soaked seaweed membrane I guess). I honestly think that would be a much better angle to focus on, because a single mouthful of water inside a blob is hardly enticing to me, a person who chugs water by the liter, but a way to get my sweet sweet barbecue sauce into my face with less plastic is VERY interesting to me, a person who eats barbecue sauce by the liter.
posted by DSime at 3:22 PM on September 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Sounds great but they'll never catch on, too weird.

See also, Xiao Long Bao Man Tou dumplings, from Shanghai.
posted by Rash at 3:44 PM on September 28, 2018

From the sound of it, they have to be made on site, they don't store. And they are awfully small for festivals, where you want a water bottle you can carry around. There's only so many applications where you want a mouthful of water and no more, beyond marathons.
posted by tavella at 4:35 PM on September 28, 2018

I could definitely see this catching on as a trendy food thing, like the raindrop cake! Previously.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:17 PM on September 28, 2018

Not just for Alzheimer's! I went in to therapy yesterday and was excitedly told about those Jelly Drops, because I'm on lithium and... am bad at hydrating, which is not good for a med with a narrow therapeutic index.
posted by ahundredjarsofsky at 8:34 PM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

For hundreds if not thousands of years, there were these magical, public things called water fountains...
posted by Muddler at 4:06 AM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

"hands" shivers
posted by filtergik at 4:17 AM on September 29, 2018

I feel like the texture of this would gross me out to the point where I would be unable to use them at all. Just looking at them makes my skin crawl a little.
posted by sarcasticah at 8:38 AM on September 29, 2018

Or you could put water in a Thermos or Nalgene bottle and carry that around with you, and reuse it indefinitely.
posted by zardoz at 4:05 PM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure these were in a John Wyndam short story.
These two guys get abducted and this is how their water is supplied.
posted by Iax at 10:42 PM on September 29, 2018