The Next Frontier for 3-D Printers is Healthy Food
credit: Chloé Rutzerveld
Researchers around the world are
experimenting with ways to use 3-D printers to make food. Their efforts could one day aid nutrition and sustainability.
Consumers can’t just go out and buy an affordable 3-D printer to make dinner
or desert. But the growing momentum and early creations hint at something that will change the way we
eat in the near future.
“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.”
The idea behind Dutch designer Chloé Rutzerveld’s Edible Growth
project are “living biscuits”, 3-D printed, meat-ball-sized h’or d’oeuvres that are healthy, nutritious,
and natural.
Rutzerveld’s biscuits may just be the latest example of the food we’ll all be sharing
and consuming in the future – made at home with our handy countertop food printers.
The U.S. Army envisions 3-D food for soldiers. Food technologist Lauren Oleksyk of the Natick Soldier Systems Center imagines soldiers equipped with sensors that monitor their ongoing nutritional state. (Do they need more
More iron? Less cholesterol?) The sensors then interface with a 3-D printer that, using nutrient-dense powdered or liquid matrices, produces an optimized food patty or power bar. For future soldiers, a 3-D printer may be a standard item of field gear.
