Journey to the frontier of food and you’ll find a 3-D printer, spewing out chocolate. While traditional cooking isn’t going anywhere, you can count on 3-D-printed foods eventually finding a place in our world.
Researchers around the world are fiddling with ways to use 3-D printers to make food. Their efforts could one day aid nutrition and sustainability. So far most of the work is in printing sugar and chocolate. And consumers can’t just go out and buy an affordable 3-D printer to make dinner tonight, let alone dessert. But the growing momentum and early creations hint at something that will change the way we eat.
“I don’t see this as a novelty. I see it as something that really will become a part of the culinary fabric for years to come,” said Liz von Hasseln, the creative director of the Sugar Lab at 3D Systems. “I think the way that happens really powerfully is when it impacts kind of the cultural ritual of eating which is actually a really powerful part of being a person in the world.” … (read more)