Is Football-Shaped Bread the Wave of the Future?

One company believes it is

There's an emerging contender for "strangest futuristic comestible," and it's some sort of baked good called Eat the Ball. This apparent bread product is available in a variety of flavors and shapes, and it's been endorsed by several professional athletes. So, what is Eat the Ball, exactly?

It's "bread of a new generation."

At least, that's how Eat the Ball is described on its official website. Both the white and multi-grain versions are "gently produced," which means they're fermented instead of baked, and then flash-frozen. The company says this results in "extraordinary long freshness, naturalness, and uncomplicated handling through easy defrosting and refreezing." Once the frozen product is thawed, it's ready to eat. The ingredients are mostly similar to regular bread of an old generation — wheat flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and the like — it's just the cooking process that sets Eat the Ball apart.

The bread comes in sports-themed shapes.

Well, Eat the Ball's look sets it apart too. If a standard loaf seems too boring, Eat the Ball is the product for you. The breads come in four shapes: "earthball" (small doughy globes), football, soccer ball, and hockey puck. The shapes don't seem to have any affect on what ingredients go into the bread. Eat the Ball must hope its sporty shapes will prove especially popular with the youthful demographic.

Russell Wilson is a fan.

Eat the Ball lists several athlete endorsers, but the biggest by far is the Seattle Seahawks starting quarterback. In a promotional video, Wilson explains why he's on board.

Wilson touts the all-natural ingredients and attempts to make the argument that the "earthball" serves as an educational tool, in addition to being a snack. "Rather than just grabbing a normal piece of bread, now [a child] actually grabs something that triggers his mind to think about the continents of the world, and what cities and where, and where they want to go," Wilson says. Marketing bread as an educational tool is a stretch, but give Wilson a pat on the back for his effort.

It's available in the Pacific Northwest.

Eat the Ball got its start in Germany, and it's exclusive to Safeway stores in the United States. The bread shows up at several locations in Washington and Idaho, plus a few in Alaska, and one in Wisconsin. Outside the U.S., the bread is listed for sale at a few Safeways in western Canada and numerous retail outlets in western and northern Europe.

Wilson says the plan is to make Eat the Ball available across the United States, so keep your eyes peeled, sports fans.

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