Food For Thought: Moving Forward with 3D Food Printing Technology
Credit: Bloomberg
As I continue on my journey to computer developer, I once again find myself wondering how I can use my new superpowers for good. What problems or social ills can be addressed through code? Well, there is one area where farmers, scientists, and technology entrepreneurs are making serious strides in an effort to address world hunger.
With the global population set to reach 9 billion by 2050, at which point agricultural systems will be unable to supply food to everyone, modern food production methods will need a radical transformation to keep up. This is where 3D food printing comes in. We’ve come a long way from the “Replicator”, the Star Trek food manufacturer that was able to turn any molecule into edible food and whole dishes. These days we are already using 3D technology in medicine, automotive manufacturing, as well as the defense and aerospace industries.
But why 3D print food? Let’s explore a few of the most pressing reasons.
- Waste Reduction — 3D printing food will cut down on plastic packaging. Especially when we reach the point that we take our own reusable food capsules to a store, fill up, and take them home to print. 3D printing also enables the reproduction of “ugly” food. There’s a concept of “ugly” fruits and vegetables, meats, and fish that people don’t want to eat because they look unconventional. This means that they often don’t pass quality control and are thrown away, despite being perfectly good. A company called Natural Machines showcased its ability to reprocess cuts of fish into more appealing shapes. The company is working with Matís, an Icelandic food and biotech institute, to 3D-print nutritious cuts of fish that often get left on their bone and are thrown out during mass manufacturing.
- Special Diets — Having your own choice of ingredients allows you to cater to special diets such as veganism, gluten-free and dairy-free. In the future, we will likely be able to coordinate your devices to the 3D printer. For example, your wearable fitness tracker, which has your calorie consumption, could transfer that data to the 3D printer to create a customized meal.
- Transparency — 3D food printing allows users to know exactly what ingredients are used to print their food item, which is a quality many consumers would appreciate. The machines usually do not use any additional additives, preservatives or gelling agents to create its designs. This will also enable home users to manufacture certain foods that are similar to those made by mass producers, but this time with ingredients with less salt, oil, and artificial additives.
- New Food Sources — 3D food printing also offers the possibility of using other, less traditional, protein sources. While in the western world there is a great reluctance to eat insects, in other countries it is quite normal. And it makes sense because small insects are valuable protein carriers! Designer Susana Soares pointed out that meat consumption needs to be reduced and as a substitute, she uses insects. Insects are more environmentally friendly because they produce less methane and consume less water. With the help of 3D printing, an initially unappetizing protein carrier can still be used. “The influence of aesthetics on the choice of food is well documented. The appearance of the food influences the acceptance and the taste experience“.
- Medical Accommodations — According to a Harvard Medical School study, one in 25 adults annually are affected by chewing and swallowing difficulties, a condition known as dysphagia. The condition is particularly common in the elderly and can lead to pulmonary aspiration, pneumonia, dehydration, and anxiety. The patients often want to avoid meals altogether, leading to malnutrition and weight loss. Luckily for them, a German company Biozoon, specializes in a range of texturizers that change the consistency of food. Biozoon’s SeneoPro powders can be mixed with pureed ingredients to form a paste or a gel. Once inserted into a cartridge in a 3D printer, these “smooth foods” can more accurately be reshaped to resemble solid food. This means that rather than relying on unappetizing liquids and purees to get required vitamins and minerals, a patient can once again enjoy a solid meal that is easy to ingest at the same time.
Ok, great, there are so many reasons why this is cool! But wait, how does this work exactly?
Three-dimensional printers — machines that can fit on a desktop and create 3D objects from plastics, metals, and other raw materials — can do just about anything. Most food 3D printers use extrusion 3D printing technology, but instead of using plastic material, food 3D printers use paste-type ingredients. The most common ingredients are chocolate, pancake batter and cream, although there are many other possibilities including gingerbread, spinach quiche and burgers. And the list goes on! They are 3D printed layer after layer, generally through a syringe-like extruder. As long as the ingredients can be puréed, it can be printed. The key consideration is that whatever is being printed needs to be forced through a syringe-like mechanism to be extruded onto a plate. 3D printing food works much like a regular 3D printer in the sense that a print head extrudes material onto a surface. The piece can be any shape the designer wants, as long as it does not extend past the spacial limitations of the printer and the laws of physics.
A few available food printers (such as the Bocusini food 3D printer or the PancakeBot) provide easy to use software that lets you simply draw what you want the machine to print. Most of the companies offering food 3D printers have recipe repositories where you can choose tested shapes for your 3D printed dishes. If you are feeling ambitious and want to make your own creations, you’ll have to experiment with CAD programs to get to the shapes you want and export into a readable file format for your food 3D printer.
Ok, so now we know WHY 3D food printing technology is needed, and now we know HOW it works, but WHERE can we see it applied?
BeeHex, Inc. has developed a 3D printer that can produce fresh foods like pizza. BeeHex CEO, Anjan Contractor, originally developed the 3D printer for NASA astronauts. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration saw a need for better food options for their astronauts during space missions. In response to their needs, Contractor — who had been working with 3D printers for a while — pitched a personalized 3D food printer to the administration. NASA had originally envisaged “really boring” food pills and food bars for astronauts to eat during the five-year return trip to Mars, before looking to BeeHex for some better alternatives. They proposed an idea of making pizza ingredients in powdered form, rehydrating them, and recreating the texture using a 3D food printer. Powdered and dehydrated ingredients used in the printing capsules would last longer and be easier to store, cutting wastage. NASA loved the idea and Contractor then developed his first 3D food printer that prints pizza. The project eventually did not make it to phase two of NASA’s three-phase project. However, it did inspire Contractor to create a model suitable for use on Earth.
This project led Contractor to meet Benjamin Feltner who is now the COO and co-founder of BeeHex. Together, they produced Chef 3D, a printer that has the ability to print out pizzas according to the user’s preference in shape, size, toppings and even calories. “We started off with pizza because it’s entertaining and actually tasted really good because we got the recipe from one of the best pizza restaurants in New York City. But it can do anything and we’ve pivoted to doing a few types of food now.
“One product we will be offering and are willing to talk to people about now is a personalized nutrition machine. That’s something that might go in airports, gyms, hotels and things where you need something that’s built specifically for you and you don’t have your kitchen right there. So, you [don’t] have to go out and get some food that isn’t very nutritious or something in a certain area that you’re not familiar with. This will sort of be like your multivitamin but a food replacement for that.”
We are still quite a long way from the day when 3D food printing is the norm, but we are already seeing them in cooking and baking competitions, specialty restaurants, and smart homes on the leading edge. It took approximately 30 years after microwaves went into the consumer market for them to get 90 percent market penetration. That figure will likely be halved for a 3D food printer because technology has advanced a lot, and we’re a much more tech savvy audience. Not to mention we can build things a lot faster!
The problem of world hunger will require a multifaceted approach to solving, and I believe that this technology plays an important role. Maybe in 10 to 15 years 3D food printers will be a common kitchen appliance like an oven or a stove, for both professional and home kitchen use. It does take time for technology to evolve in order to become mass market, but with our dwindling resources and growing population, this is one adoption curve we can hopefully make a little shorter.
