Most children are bound to hear the words "don't play with your food" at least once in their lifetime. If I ever become a mother, or happen to come across a child playing with his or her food, that phrase will never escape my mouth. After being introduced to soybean crayons while spending time with my 11 month old niece and 2 1/2 year old nephew, I plan to live out the rest of my life encouraging all children (and adults for that matter) to play with their food.
While attending Purdue University in 1994, Don Rote, Jocelyn Wong, and Thomas Chang entered their inventive soybean crayons in a Soybean Innovation contest founded by two of Purdue's professors. Working as a team, the three students developed the crayons using all-natural, biodegradable soybean oil. Up until that point most crayons were made with paraffin, a toxic derivative of petroleum oil. The innovative soybean crayons caused such a buzz that Dixon Ticonderoga Company, a manufacturer and marketer of writing instruments and art supplies, bought the rights to produce them and ultimately introduced them to the U.S. market three years later in 1997 (yes, it is 2009- so it only took me 12 years to notice). Soybean crayons are brighter and less toxic (the taste may be unappetizing, but they can literally be eaten with no ill-effects) than their paraffin based counterparts, and they are completely biodegradable. If two Purdue University professors had not encouraged students to experiment with food, children all across the U.S. may be filling coloring books, and quite possibly their mouths, with dull colors made from toxic crayons.
*In addition to the aforementioned soybean crayons, past winners of Purdue University's Soybean Innovation contest include soy-based lip balm, biodegradable ski wax, soy candles, economical hydraulic fuel and cereal.
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