Author: Andrew Housman
Date: June 1, 2023
Link: https://www.foodrepublic.com/1294248/bubble-wrap-frozen-groceries-hack/
Picture the moment of regret on a hot summer day when you make the trek down to the supermarket to pick up a cold pint of ice cream only to find out it has melted into a syrupy soup by the time you get home. The good news is you never have to face this heartbreak, as science presents a simple way to prevent this disaster from ever happening again. The simple solution? Bubble wrap. The insulation that bubble wrap provides can not only save frozen treats from a liquefied fate, it can also act as an all-purpose temporary refrigeration method to prevent all types of food from spoiling.
Grocery freezer bags and insulated shopping bags provide a cool shelter for food on the journey to the kitchen fridge, but it’s more difficult (not to mention more expensive) to acquire these in a pinch. Bubble wrap has the benefit of giving a second life to a seemingly useless piece of trash that everyone who has ever received a package in the mail is intimately familiar with. That’s because the air pockets that give the bubble wrap its name act as an insulator to prevent heat from encroaching on whatever it’s wrapped around (so no satisfying popping of the bubbles, unfortunately).
It may take a couple of extra seconds to snuggle your groceries in bubble wrap, but it might be worth it to make the trip back home a lot less stressful. Gone are the days of trying to speed through traffic, walk at a brisker pace carrying heavy bags, and neglecting to add an extra stop to your errand list. You can rest your head easy on a nice, comfy pillow of bubble wrap knowing that your precious cargo will remain cold.
Analysis:
In looking for ways to protect groceries, I stumbled upon this article. I had never considered how bubble wrap could also be used to insulate groceries. This realization made me think about how we could attempt to integrate bubble wrap as a trunk liner to support groceries and keep them from getting warm by the time you get home. Either way, this article got me thinking about how the trunk could be designed to better insulate and protect the groceries.
