Andrew Huang is an inventive musician. He’s especially fond of musical challenges, such as his 3 minute, 35 second song that exhibits 26 distinct musical genres.
For his latest challenge, Mr. Huang composed and performed an entire rap song that does not contain the letter E—the most common letter in the English language.
-via Daily of the Day
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Perec is noted for his constrained writing: his 300-page novel La disparition (1969) is a lipogram, written without ever using the letter "e". It has been translated into English by Gilbert Adair under the title A Void (1994).
The literary lab Perec setup was called the OULIPO, and they experimented in all poetic and literary medias (drawing, writing, speaking).
Consumers would like it, but do the manufacturers want less waste? After all, they would end up selling less, not to mention the cost of adding the coating.
out of date: 34%
left over after cooking: 26%
left on plate: 20%
(Don't know about the other 20%)
Condiment/Herb offenders sorted by severity are:
Other sauces: 15.4%
Cook-in sauces: 12.2%
Herbs & Spices: 10.9%
Other condiment, spice, sauce, oil or herb: 10.2%
...
Mayonnaise / Salad cream: 4.6%
...
Ketchup: 2.9%
Proportion of the weight of food items purchased that is thrown away (mixed adult households)
Salad: 38.6%
Bakery: 23.9%
Vegetables: 14.7%
Confectionary: 11.1%
Meat and Fish: 10.4%
Condiments: 9.8%
Dried Food: 9.8%
...
Source: http://www.ns.is/ns/upload/files/pdf-skrar/matarskyrsla1.pdf
So, it kind of does look like it was a pet project that the researchers identified with, and the $17 billion (big scary number) is a rationalization after the initial impulse that was then carried out under the pretext of altruism, when in fact it was probably just curiosity and personal identification with the pet-peeves of condiment use.
Apparently the "Bagged Salad & Dressing" market (UK data) reached $10 billion in 2011 and was expected to grow as consumers become more health conscious. 38.6% of $10 billion is greater than 9.8% of $17 billion. Maybe they should have been working on a way to keep salad fresh longer.