Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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"inflatable" commercially-sold meals

mass-produced low-quality compact food - expands roughly ~double the size as before
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What if food was sold in stores that could inflate when heated? Would work via heat in a microwave pushing air inside allowing it to expand, and could be for most foods including steak. Gross concept and would probably be very airy tasting, but its an interesting idea. I think this is how astronaut food works? but still would be odd having a product like this on shelves - I wonder how much something like this would cost
gonaldgoose, Feb 17 2023

Pump it up turkey. https://www.youtube...watch?v=Pdd0jUnPz-M
[doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2023]

[link]






       I think its the food that is to be inflated, not the stores.   

       Anyway I have always assumed that filling something with water was different from filling it with air.
pocmloc, Feb 17 2023
  

       //filling something with water was different from filling it with air//   

       You sound like one of those dry, untrustworthy air breathers to me.
Voice, Feb 17 2023
  

       A little water in a flexible space will turn to steam and expand it. They do that with omurice in Japan. Unfortunately when the heat goes the omelette collapses.   

       Edit: oddly I can't find any references to it online so you'll just have to trust me.
Voice, Feb 17 2023
  

       No I disagree, the idea is not the microwave, the idea is the food.   

       I admit, I breathe air a lot of the time. But that shouldn't affect my ability to critique this idea using logic and facts.
pocmloc, Feb 17 2023
  

       [+] just because this is good HB fare, but I just remembered a SNL skit about this. (And no, I'm not doing that obnoxious "BAKED! YOU MUST TAKE THIS DOWN IMMEDIATELY!" thing, just a fun link.)
doctorremulac3, Feb 18 2023
  

       OK here's how this could work in practice. The food item is produced in super-thin sheets. One side of each sheet is sealed with something like wax glaze, or gelatine, or yacht varnish, or similar to make an airtight surface. These two sealed faces are glued together along their edges to form a kind of airtight packet.   

       Now for the clever bit, a slender capsule is inserted inside before sealing. This contains some substance that is solid at room temperature but which sublimates at microwave temperature. Or perhaps just a gelatine sachet of water.   

       When you pp this super-thin steak into the microwave and put it on full power, it will only take a few minutes for the microwaves to boil the water or whatever in the sachet, which escapes through the sachet's meltable lining, and so increases the air pressure inside the food, puffing it up like a pillow.   

       Serve and enjoy.
pocmloc, Feb 18 2023
  

       So, many foods have a high percentage of water. Freeze drying food removes the water, leaving the food roughly the same size/shape but much lighter. It can rehydrate somewhat quickly because all the pores in the food are open for water to get in. Standard drying of food, makes it lighter AND causes it to shrink, but tends to make it hard to rehydrate because there is no space for water to flow back in. If we use a system like [pocmloc] proposed, it might be able to puff the food back up as the steam expands, but it will be very dry. Getting the food back into a rough facsimile of the original would require much more water, and defeat the purpose, unless of course the water is added by the end user. So, microwave the food using sensor mode till it gets a certain margin above boiling temperature, indicating that all of the water embedded has flashed to steam, expanding the pores in the food. Then add hot water that was heated separately which will flow through the pores to make the food marginally palatable.
scad mientist, Feb 19 2023
  

       Very good [scad] but we are talking at cross purposes here, you seem to be suggesting taking an original steak and compressing it down so that upon inflation it returns to its original size. I am talking about taking the original steak and cutting it into two or three half-sized pieces and then expanding each quarter or third so that it is inflated to the size of the original. Yours merely sounds gross, mine also has the benefit of ripping of the customer.
pocmloc, Feb 19 2023
  

       Popcorn. You're thinking of popcorn.
AusCan531, Feb 22 2023
  

       Hot dogs that puff up when they're boiled is an odd phenomenon. If you didn't grow up thinking that's how they're supposed to be you would mistrust them. If you did grow up thinking that's how they're supposed to be you would mistrust any non-puffed hot dog.
Voice, Nov 23 2023
  
      
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