Printable Food Is Almost Here: Neat or Nasty?
SodaHead Tech
2011/09/15 15:00:00
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Remember the days when the idea of tossing a pill in the microwave and pulling out a three course meal was nothing but a sci-fi fantasy?
Well, it still is.
But you can print your food, if you're just looking for a futuristic way of cooking dinner. It's not quite as appetizing as the microwavable pill, but it's still something you might expect to read in a William Gibson novel.
Cornell Creative Machines Lab designed a "Solid Freeform Fabrication" device that can load syringes full of liquefied food and "print" meals out of it.
It isn't limited to soft foods, but the foods do have to be pureed first, which certainly limits the possibilities.
CCML's official website writes, "Using a novel combination of hydrocolloids (xanthium gum and gelatin) and flavor agents, texture and flavor can be independently tuned to produce printing materials that simulate a broad range of foods, with only a minimal number of materials."
The device has not been properly named yet, and is obviously not available to the public, but they do have plenty of pics.
Mm, just like grandma used to make.
CCML also plans to market the device to "fine dining" professionals, suggesting the machine's ability to shape, inject, and construct otherwise complicated geometric patterns or designs.
We can't wait to see what Anthony Bourdain does with one of these things.
Well, it still is.
But you can print your food, if you're just looking for a futuristic way of cooking dinner. It's not quite as appetizing as the microwavable pill, but it's still something you might expect to read in a William Gibson novel.
Cornell Creative Machines Lab designed a "Solid Freeform Fabrication" device that can load syringes full of liquefied food and "print" meals out of it.
It isn't limited to soft foods, but the foods do have to be pureed first, which certainly limits the possibilities.
CCML's official website writes, "Using a novel combination of hydrocolloids (xanthium gum and gelatin) and flavor agents, texture and flavor can be independently tuned to produce printing materials that simulate a broad range of foods, with only a minimal number of materials."
The device has not been properly named yet, and is obviously not available to the public, but they do have plenty of pics.
Mm, just like grandma used to make.
CCML also plans to market the device to "fine dining" professionals, suggesting the machine's ability to shape, inject, and construct otherwise complicated geometric patterns or designs.
We can't wait to see what Anthony Bourdain does with one of these things.
Top Opinion
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Paul 2011/09/16 00:29:16
You could fill a large syringe with meat and sauce, another syringe with pasta, and one more syringe with cheese, and then print a lasagna in a pan! :D
Plants practice chemical warfare.
Most hot foods? The "heat" comes from a neurotoxin that only affects mammals. Birds eat the fruit, fly around, then poop out the seeds elsewhere, spreading the plant's offspring for it. Mammal digestive tracks destroy the seeds.
Even aside from that, all matter is made up of chemicals. Some just happen to be nastier than others.
We evolved (or were designed...whatever, that's beside the point) to deal with the natural poisons and other chemicals in the food we're supposed to eat.
The FDA tells us that food sprayed with synthetic pesticides, fungisides, herbicides, etc, and fed synthetic fertilizer are perfectly safe. Maybe even safer than food grown organically. I don't particularly trust the FDA.
We *know* that DDT interferes with the reproductive systems of the young. Especially some rare birds. So activists have gotten it banned pretty much everywhere on the planet. Even places where malaria is still a major killer and it just might be worth the risk (I don't think so, but it's debatable).
We'd starve to death eating grass. But cows eat it, juggle the chemicals around a bit, and produce delicious food (anyone who things corn-fed beef tastes better is out of their minds...but that's still just an opinion).
Anyway, TheNightFly was at least mostly correct. Once you get above the subatomic level, everything (pretty much by definition) that exists is made of chemicals.
It's actually really cool. They should be able to build a new _whatever_ for you out of your own cells so there's basically 0 chance of your body rejecting it.
I'm sure one of the first things someone will make is little edible naked ladies.
That just made my day.
Daily dinner preparation? NO.
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Bing!
Dinner is served.