Chow Caps

Chow Caps are a brand of meal capsules which were manufactured by Pohl, Kornbluth & Knight. The precursors to Big Bang Food Pellets, they were conceived of as the ultimate quick foodstuff: a capsule that would expand into a full, nutritious meal upon contact with stomach acid.

The concept was the brainchild of Julian Matthews when he worked as a top advertising executive at PKK, and he directed their marketing and promotion.

Mike Void, the president of the CommLink Advertising Bureau, lobbied the government on 10 June 2144 to overturn the 2142 Virtual Entertainment Code banning the use of subliminal commercials known as blipverts. He said that broadcasters had experienced a dramatic reduction in advertising revenue since the introduction of the ban, and that a nanosecond or less of someone eating a Chow Cap during a floaterball game could easily bring in 100,000 credits.

Controversy
Despite clinical trials, once Chow Caps hit the market it was found that the capsule expanded prematurely in a number of people, rupturing the oesophagus. After many emergency surgeries and several deaths, the product was withdrawn from the market amid a flurry of lawsuits. Matthews was dismissed from PKK, and later entered full-time politics.

On 3 March 2144, Jessica LeGuin, chief of news at CommLink was found dead in the swimming pool of her Manhattan townhouse, seemingly due to a deliberate overdose of Chow Caps. A suicide holodisc found at the scene suggested that LeGuin had been unable to live with the accusation by the Department of Justice that she was an "R" collaborator.