Space technologies get to the most important joy and misfortune of humanity - food. Apparently, in the foreseeable future, 3D printers will replace almost all equipment for cooking and radically change the grocery market.
The world food market has exceeded a trillion dollars and leaves behind most of the branches of human activity in terms of scale. However, there are many problems here too. In particular, the quality of food has long been in doubt, and the damage that agriculture causes to the environment is colossal.
For example, let's look at the largest consumer of food, the United States: agricultural enterprises occupy 50% of the country's living area, they consume 80% of fresh water and 10% of fuel. At the same time, 40% of the food produced by the buyer subsequently simply throws it into the trash.
You can talk for a long time about the fairness of the world order, or you can think about how modern technologies could correct the situation. After all, people often throw away food because it is not stored for long and its consumption is difficult to calculate. Suffice it to recall how the product, which caused a wild appetite in the store, then lies in the refrigerator for weeks.
In starving Africa, it is also not always a matter of politics and the total poverty of the population. The hot climate and large territories severely limit the list of safe products, for example, for this reason, chicken eggs are not exported to many countries of the Black Continent.
Can this problem be solved at all? One interesting possibility is the ubiquity of food production with a 3D printer. 3D printing is no longer exotic, and printer prices are slowly dropping - now you can buy a simple model for less than $ 1,000.
Inkjet technology implies the ability to use anything that can flow more or less as ink, for example, in medicine, living tissues are grown from a solution of cell cultures. Not surprisingly, 3D printers are being tried to print delicious and healthy food.
Promotional video:
Space first
The problem of nutrition in space is clear to everyone: radiation, little storage space, difficulty in cooking. And if a varied menu can be delivered to the ISS more or less regularly, then in a three-year mission to Mars, astronauts will have to forget about gastronomic delights.
The only way to solve the problem of food and good humor of the space explorers is to make dishes directly in orbit.
“Now astronauts on the ISS eat the same thing, changing the menu every 2-3 weeks,” says Michelle Terfanski, an aerospace engineer. "I think making a variety of dishes on a 3D printer will be especially convenient during long space flights." By "convenient," Terfanski means far more important things than not having to cook for hours in a space kitchen. The fact is that food in space is often the only source of vivid positive emotions, and a familiar homemade dish can become a real holiday. The monotony of menus while flying to Mars and asteroids can be one of the reasons for serious stress.
Soft printing
Scientists at Cornell University have developed a new technology that could radically change the food industry and … save people months of their lives. Yes, even the "fans" of catering, Americans, spend 30 minutes a day cooking, 3.8 working weeks a year. Think about it, people spend 1 month out of 12 at the stove, but Russians spend much more time cooking than Americans!
So, scientists have created a special technology for printing food: Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF). It is based on gel-like substances, the so-called hydrocolloids, which can be used as ink for a 3D printer.
Hydrocolloids can have a variety of flavors and colors - just mix the main components with different flavors and textures. Thus, with a minimum amount of initial components, you can print a variety of dishes saturated with the necessary amino acids, vitamins and minerals. The form of food, its flavor and composition can be varied almost endlessly, creating incredible dishes.
There were still problems with printing a piece of meat and fruit. But the SFF technology, as the developers promise, allows you to print a large list of dishes: chocolate, fried fish, carrots, mushrooms, apple, boiled chicken, banana, boiled pasta, fresh mozzarella cheese, tomato, boiled yolk, butter, marshmallow, ground beef, sauces, whipped cream, mashed potatoes, cakes, white bread, corn porridge, pudding, kneaded dough, applesauce, milk, ice cream, sorbet, ground coffee, etc.
To print this fantastic variety of dishes for this kind of cooking, you need to choose the right ratio of components and appropriate flavoring additives. In one experiment, scientists prepared various mixtures of xanthan gum (E415) and gelatin in water. The concentrations ranged from 0.5% to 4% gelatin in water (by weight) and from 2% to 16% xanthan. After preparing the hydrocolloid, it was filled into 10 ml syringe-like cartridges and the food was printed using a Fab @ Home 3D printer.
Then the dishes were presented to seven tasters, including professional chefs. Each rated the printed food against a specific food table. As it turned out, the new type of food is very close in taste to natural food. So, dishes with 4% gelatin were called similar to chocolate, from 1% - to tomato, 16% xanthan - boiled spaghetti, 0.5% gelatin and 8% xanthan - for cake or meringue, 0.5% gelatin - for milk. In general, the scheme is simple: the more xanthan, the stronger and more structured the food.
Thus, with only two inexpensive and common components, the harmless food additive E415 and gelatin, a wide range of products can be imitated. Of course, the taste and nutritional value of these products depends only on the imagination of the cook and the types of additives - a perfect imitation of familiar products is not at all necessary. In the end, think - could you eat a piece of cooked meat without seasoning, even without salt? So in many respects the "quality" of food we perceive depends on certain additives.
Now Available
Currently, some food made with a 3D printer is already being sold, there are even restaurants in which the printed poison is the main "chip".
The most ambitious project is of course the American company Modern Meadow, which has already learned how to grow animal muscle cells and use them as ink for 3D printing. In Modern Meadow they can print not only an appetizing steak, but even a piece of bacon - they have also learned to grow animal skins.
Essential Dynamics has been selling a new type of 3D printer for almost a year that can use anything that can be syringed as ink. It costs $ 2,995 and can print a wide variety of structures, not only with epoxy or silicone, but also chocolate, cheese, etc.
If you want to eat a hamburger made with the latest technology, then Maastricht University in the Netherlands is worth it. Dutch scientists have combined stem cell cultivation and 3D printing technology to create a complete edible hamburger for the first time. Such a dish is really quite expensive - a laboratory sample cost $ 300 thousand, but not a single animal died in the manufacture of this meat dish.
An amazing future
3D printing in general and food in particular can literally change the world. This is not an exaggeration. If you take the food industry, for example, the ability to make any dish from multiple ingredients with a compact device is revolutionizing the world's largest industrial sector. Big changes await ordinary people too. Most of the household appliances will disappear from the kitchen, there will be no more clouds of steam, soot, many hours of tedious cooking. It will be possible to exchange recipes via the Internet, and in order to perfectly reproduce the dish of the ingenious chef, it will be enough to load his recipe into your 3D printer.
So far, 3D printing food takes a long time: making a cake can take half an hour or even more. However, this is not so important when you consider that you can print food on a pre-set schedule.
But this is not the main advantage of 3D printing food - for the first time, we will be able to get rid of the "dictates" of food additives in our favorite pizza, which affect our appetite so strongly that we simply cannot leave the table. Printed food promises to be much healthier and healthier, which means this technology will improve and prolong our lives. For the first time, it will be possible to independently choose an ideally balanced diet for a child, an athlete, a pregnant woman, for weight gain / loss, etc.