Jello Socks...?

It seems like everyday we are finding a new use for plants and animal by-products. All the rage right now is a plant based replacement for meat. However, think of all the other uses for the making of clothes and the like. From Listverse, here is an article about gelatin.

Gelatin

You know gelatin as the stuff in your JELL-O, some frosted cereals, and sometimes even yogurt. Where you won’t find gelatin is in your clothes.

Yet.

While you probably think of gelatin as being gooey and jiggly in consistency, it’s actually a powder made from crushed skin, cartilage, bone marrow, and other animal by-products. This makes it a perfect candidate for a sustainable, less wasteful material from which to make clothes.

Researchers have succeeded in spinning yarn out of gelatin. The yarn is then treated with a spray of formaldehyde gas and lanolin, producing a strong, warm yarn you can spin into gummy-bear mittens (sugary flavor not included).

Using gelatin to make clothes isn’t all that weird, either. The textile industry experimented with using vegetable and food by-products as far back as a century ago, until the petroleum-based industry took over.

Today, as we look for greener and less biologically harmful ways to live, scientists—and designers—are looking for more natural sources for what we wear. It might sound strange now, but you probably won’t give a second thought to wearing JELL-O socks, bamboo dresses, or sour milk shirts in the future.

I guess it's all fine and dandy to find alternative ways to use plants, but are we really to the point in our lives where this is a major concern? How about focusing on something a bit more important...like curing diseases. Worry about the jello socks later.

Coffee out on the patio this morning.