Apparently, edible clothing is all the rage...and I can't stop thinking about it. Here's what's been eating me for the last couple of days:

- As an edible clothing retailer, it seems most profitable to follow the common practice of selling smaller items at seemingly lower cost but ultimately at a higher profit margin per square inch. For example, an edible hat might cost a consumer $20 (roughly $.50 per square unit of edible fabric) and a shirt might cost $80 (approximately $.40 per square inch). Though the customer pays $60 extra for the shirt, they're getting more food/clothing for their dollar while the store enjoys a higher gross profit.

- A savvy consumer might recognize this superior value of larger pieces of clothing and shell out the extra cash knowing they can eat their way to whatever smaller garment(s) they desire. Obviously there are limitations specific to each garment, but a hungry person could easily nibble a pair of slacks into some tasteful (zing!) chaps or capri pants. For their money, a shopper's best buy is surely a wet suit. Since it covers your entire body, it could easily be eaten into whatever apparel needed: sweater, tank top, board shorts, whatever. The flexibility is certainly worth paying a premium.

- Despite any the monetary value of the attire, its real cost must be calculated to include the fact that no sane person would wear an edible garment more than once and certainly not eat the clothing after use. For sanitary and psychological reasons, it's difficult to believe that food can possibly be enjoyed after rubbing against a person's figurative "buns", "pits" or "bacon strip" for any amount of time. Those who invoke the 5 second rule are being unrealistic considering most clothing takes at least 5 seconds to put on.

- Washing the garment presents further challenges. Using a traditional washing machine would effectively transform it into a giant pot of stew (which can be good or bad depending on whether you're hungry for stew). Even if it did survive the wash, drying is even more complicated. Machine drying would turn your dryer into an oven and prevent you from ever doing laundry without making your clothes reek of jerky, quiche or whatever fabric your shirt is made of. Though advocates of edible clothing will argue that the threat of clothes smelling like food is a moot point, I'd counter that most people would prefer a choice in the matter. Air drying is an option, but would certainly attract invite unwanted critters and/or malnourished children eager for a snack. Who wants that?

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Other thoughts worth considering before choosing to wear edible clothes:
- You’ll never need to salt your food.
- Your credibility when complaining about hair in your food will be greatly diminished
- Depending on how well it’s cooked, the sticking properties of a “Spaghetti strap dress” could remove the need for a brassiere.