Dumb Product Concept: The Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler

In summary, the "inside-the-shell egg scrambler" is a product dedicated to those who don't know how to cook or want their eggs heavy and rubbery. It is a waste of time and energy to make this product, and it is offensive because it is convenience taken to the point of aburdity.
  • #36
Borg said:
Well... Did you write down the number? :tongue:
Ordered two of them.
 
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  • #37
Ivan Seeking said:
I agree with Turbo and so do top-tier chefs. About twelve years ago, Tsu and I attended a brunch at a high-end hotel, in Portland. The scrambled eggs were so good that I made a point to hunt down a chef and ask how they were made. Based on what he said, I needed to add about three times as much milk as my mother had taught me. Sure enough, that was the trick.

Part of my objection to a product like this is the waste. It is convenience taken to the point of aburdity. I actually find products like this to be offensive.

It takes energy to manufacture and distribute any product. In a year, when you throw it away, it will go to a landfill and probably last for decades, if not much longer. Any convenience found here is trivial. Products like this are plague on our energy-hungry, oil-powered society.

I know I'm replying to a 3 year old post but oh well.

 
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  • #38
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

wikipedia said:
The iSmell or iSmell Personal Scent Synthesizer was a computer peripheral device developed by DigiScents in 2001. The prototype connected to a personal computer via USB or serial port and was designed to emit a smell when a user visited a website or opened an email. The device contained a cartridge with 128 "primary odors" which could be mixed to replicate natural and man-made odors. DigiScents had indexed thousands of common odors, which could be coded, digitized, and embedded into web pages or email.[1]
In 2006, the iSmell was named one of the "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" by PC World Magazine, which commented that "[f]ew products literally stink, but this one did--or at least it would have, had it progressed beyond the prototype stage.[2]
 
  • #39
I saw the movie. They even debunked it.
 
  • #40
[Quadratic];4324414 said:
I know I'm replying to a 3 year old post but oh well.

Actually there is a scientific reason that milk is added to scrambled eggs.

Recipes engineered for perfection—what exactly does that mean? The Science series takes you inside the experiments behind 50 cooking concepts featured in our new book, The Science of Good Cooking, by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scrambled eggs should be a dreamy mound of big, soft, wobbling curds. They should be cooked enough to hold their shape when cut but soft enough to eat with a spoon. An omelet, on the other hand, must be firm enough to roll or fold, but the eggs should still be tender and soft. Unfortunately, all too often BOTH dishes turn out dry, tough, or rubbery. Sometimes this is due to overcooking. But no matter how much you cook the eggs, they need some help to keep them tender. The magic ingredient? Fat.

The Backstory
First, let’s talk about what happens to eggs when you cook them. To understand what’s really happening, you have to start with the notion that eggs actually contain distinct elements—the whites and the yolks—that behave quite differently.

The whites are 88 percent water, 11 percent protein, and 1 percent minerals and carbohydrates. The yolks are 50 percent water, 34 percent lipids, and 16 percent protein. When eggs are heated, the water turns to steam. The protein strands begin to unfold, sticking to each other, and eventually forming a latticed network. The formation of this lattice gel is called coagulation—the transition from liquid to a semisolid that you can pick up with a fork.

Ideally, the denaturing proteins will form a loose network that is capable of holding on to the water in the eggs, which will make the cooked eggs tender and fluffy. But it’s too easy for the proteins to form very tight bonds with each other, squeezing out too much liquid in the process. Here’s where the fat comes in.

Scrambled egg recipes generally call for some sort of dairy like milk. The fat in milk coats the proteins and slows down the coagulation process. The water in the milk provides additional moisture, helping to keep the eggs tender. (The liquid also produces steam, making fluffier and lighter scrambled eggs.)

For omelettes, you add butter instead of milk.

http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/cooking-science/2012/10/we-prove-it-fat-makes-eggs-tender/
 
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  • #41
At last, a real solution to great egg-cooking conundrum!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJz4cq50g_o
 
  • #42
Great for the office!

OMG, I'm in tears, where do you find this stuff??

I am so tempted to buy a few to give away as gags.

I've started watching this show "eggless omelette".



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA0RF5ciJXE
 
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  • #43
For parents who can't get off of Twitter - TweetPee. Yes, it's a diaper that sends out tweets when it's wet.
 
  • #44
Borg said:
For parents who can't get off of Twitter - TweetPee. Yes, it's a diaper that sends out tweets when it's wet.

I would put this more in the "inspired" category. It was inevitable and I'm sitting here asking myself why I never thought of it... just out of principle and even as a joke.

You can even take it to the next level. You have it send a crying baby audio file. So the parents will be trained to respond to the sound of a baby crying. Eventually they are likely to correlate the virtual crying with the baby actually crying? :confused:
 
  • #45
I can't decide if I like this or not. It seems dumb because you can easily cut bananas with a butter knife, but I like the idea of having almost perfectly even slices. http://www.norprowebstore.com/hard-to-find-kitchen-gadgets-home-helpers/banana-slicer-54686.aspx?gclid=CPiFirDcproCFUXhQgod9kQAng
 
  • #46
I think the EU eventually gave up trying to create an international standard for the shape of bananas. And human teeth are effective enough as a banana cutters!

But on the web page there was also an ad for a "stainless steel rectangle roaster". A special gizmo that only roasts stainless steel rectangles sounds even dumber than the banana slicer.
 
  • #47
Ivan Seeking said:
Eventually they are likely to correlate the virtual crying with the baby actually crying? :confused:

It's a race between the parents learning that, and the baby figuring out how to tweet.
 
  • #48
AlephZero said:
I think the EU eventually gave up trying to create an international standard for the shape of bananas. And human teeth are effective enough as a banana cutters!

But on the web page there was also an ad for a "stainless steel rectangle roaster". A special gizmo that only roasts stainless steel rectangles sounds even dumber than the banana slicer.

What's the EU?

I think you're right. HA! I didn't notice the add. That's funny. I hate it when people aren't technical. Like in my SAT prep book, it said something along the lines of "Sometimes there will be fairly complex sentences." There is no such thing as "fairly complex sentences."I know they meant "complex" as in "complicated" or "hard to decipher" but it still annoyed me.
 
  • #49
Medgirl314 said:
What's the EU?

It's a little place called the European Union.
 
  • #50
Oh, I get it now. I knew that abbrevation, but there are a lot of abbrevations on the interwebs, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't something completely different. Thanks!
 
  • #51
International.. I missed that clue. xD
 
  • #52
Dr Lots-o'watts said:
This one actually showed up on the Dragon's Den, and it's available in local stores.
http://www.bananaguard.com/

They're marketing the Banana Guard for kids. It wasn't too long ago you had to be at least 21 and married to purchase something like this and it came only in a brown paper bag.
 
  • #54
I collect all my mail in a brown paper bag, what would the neighbors think if they say you carrying raw mail into your home? Where I live it would be all over town the next day.
 

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