30 Jan 2014
Insight
Food is essential for people to stay alive. There are various types of food, as well as there are a lot of ways to make it. There is evidence that people used fire to cook food from 1.9 million years ago. And it is, of course, one of the main ways to make it nowadays. However, a lot of alternative ways to make food were developed over the years. One of them is directly related to 3D printing.
One of the most anticipated new features of 3D printing in 2014 is possibility to print your meal. As the year just started, a considerable amount of announcements about 3D printable food has already reached the news feed. Some of them are truly amazing. Therefore, we suggest you to take a quick glance at what might become a world changing innovation. Here are just few examples of 3D printer becoming your cook.
Hershey’s 3D Printed Candy
Not so long ago, a thought about 3D printing a candy could have been taken as a gimmick. Though, one big player can change everything. And that player could be The Hershey Company, the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America. This company has announced that it has partnered with printer manufacturer 3D Systems to print candies via a new 3D printer ChefJet.
This monochromic printer uses sugar as its material and can create one-colored edibles using sugar and flavor them with chocolate, vanilla, mint, sour apple, cherry and watermelon. It is expected that ChefJet will be released in the second half of 2014 and that it will cost under $5000. The more developed model – ChefJet Pro sells for under $10,000 and can make a full-color printed edibles.
William Papa, Vice President and Chief Research and Development Officer at The Hershey Company stated that the company “embraces new technologies such as 3D printing as a way to keep moving their timeless confectionery into the future”. It is still in the stage of “exploring and developing”. However, support and desire to adopt 3D printing as a way of food manufacturing expressed by such a big company gives credibility to this technology.
Get Your Party 3D Printed
Jell-o shots are very popular in parties. Guess what - you can make them better with a 3D printer now. Jell-o 3D Printer – sounds great, right? It brings unique ornaments into your jell-o shots. What is even more fascinating – it is constructed from recycled parts. Motors from discarded CD-ROM, used old ejector mechanism – these parts had been used to create some jell-o magic. Talking about the ornaments - banana liquor, food coloring and some corn starch are the ingredients used to create them.
Have you ever imagined yourself as a chocolate candy? Well, you do not need to imagine that anymore, as you can 3D print your head as one. First of all, a 3D scanner is being used to gather the primary visual information which is then being edited with a computer and fed to 3D printer. Actually, the machine does not print chocolate, it makes silicone molds of the faces and fills them with chocolate.
Oh, you do not like chocolate? Then, maybe you are a fan of gummy bears? FabCafe, a company which created a possibility to make a chocolate version of yourself, brought another possibility - to make a gummy you. It is quite a new approach on 3D printing food, as it is customizable - a person can 3D scan himself, then choose a desirable color and flavor. However, it is not cheap - a gummi-fied version of a person costs $62.
Do you need an original gift for Valentine's Day? Well, you can make a 3D printed candy or a gummy in a form of yourself now.
Give Us Our Daily Bread
3D printing can alternate the usual ways of food making. You do not believe it? Well, someone believed in it and created a 3D printer which can print almost any design with any ingredients which a person might want. Amazing? It is still not available for home users but the collaborative work of Cornell Creative Machines Lab and the French Culinary Institute led to creating a machine which could make a toy car from peas, for example.
It seems that there might soon be an easy way to make boring food interesting and original. Edible ink could be made from melted chocolate, cheese or cookie dough. Other food could be ground and mixed with liquids to make ink.
Have you heard about Harry Houdini? Yes, that illusionist who could create incredible magic. Well, there is a 3D printer which does some kind of magic as well, and it is called Foodini. It was created by Barcelona-based start-up Natural Machines. It prints ravioli, bread sticks or even... a cheeseburger.
Foodini can use six capsules of different ingredients which are squeezed out at different rates of pressure and temperatures. It is predicted that this machine will be on sale in the middle of 2014.
NASA: Food in Space?
3D printing food in space – now, that would be a high-level operation. A year ago National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that they are exploring the possibility of using a 3D printer for making food in space. They announced that a study for the development of a 3D printed food system for long duration space missions will be conducted.
In October 2013 NASA made another announcement - that astronauts are taking a 3D printer into the space and that one day it could be used to print food for them. Still, a 3D printer in space primarily will be used only for printing the necessary parts or tools. However, it seems that the day when astronauts will eat 3D printed food is not so far away. A prototype of a 3D printer which could make pizza (yes, pizza!) was presented this year. It takes 70 seconds to cook pizza after 3D printer does its work.
As you can see, 3D printing becomes a new alternative way of food making. It is just a matter of time, when it will be fully developed and ready to be used in every home around the planet or even in space.
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