Revolutionary Implications of 3d printed FOOD

[dez]

http://qz.com/86685/the-audacious-plan-to-end-hunger-with-3-d-printed-food/

Very interesting article

[Asmo]

I absolutely love 3D printing (so much that I'm saving up for one). It really is the future of manufacturing, but I'm not sure how well it will work with food. Currently people are working on printing living tissue, so the fragility of the food particles soon won't be an issue, however I don't think it would be possible to create wet foods like a proper pizza anytime soon from long-lasting powders (the equivalent of a freeze-dried pizza or one that must be hydrated in another appliance sounds more feasible). It will be great for space travel like the article says, if printers work in freefall that is, which I doubt. As for solving world hunger, that would have to be deep into the future because 3D printers use a lot of electricity and it takes hours to print something the size of a meal, so I'm skeptical of that claim. It would seem to be massively easier to just treat food and water as human rights and just give people what they need from our massive amounts of wasted supplies, but no, Capitalism thinks that having poor people buy appliances they can't afford which use electricity they don't have access to is a valid solution to the problem it has created.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The method talked about in the article involves reconstitution of powder using mixtures of water and oil. Combined with the layer-by-layer construction methods of 3d printing and you could do a lot, but somehow I suspect that all dishes from such a device would taste suspiciously similar due to all of them having ultimately the same preparation method.

Clever and quite possibly incredibly useful for some niche applications, but I'll stick to bacon, thanks. Mmm, bacon...


It will be great for space travel like the article says, if printers work in freefall that is, which I doubt.

Why should that matter? Gravity can be approximated by using rotating sections on the station/spacecraft, or if the engines are powerful enough to accelerate at 1G for most of the journey, then the decks can be arranged and designed to be used that way when the ship is under way.

Failing that, and if for some reason you've not seen fit to redesign your printers for microgravity operation, then just place the damn thing the right way up in a centrifuge and be done with it.


As for solving world hunger, that would have to be deep into the future because 3D printers use a lot of electricity and it takes hours to print something the size of a meal, so I'm skeptical of that claim.

Well presumably the physical measurement tolerances for printing a meal are much, much less finicky than say, the physical tolerances required to get micro-circuitry working properly. So there's plenty of scope for advancements and short-cuts to be made.

I'm not sure why you think electricity is salient, since you can't eat it unless you're a robot. It's entirely possible that at some point we could face an abundance of electricity while still having trouble finding something actually edible to put on our plates.

The "solving world hunger" thing presumably comes from this machine's ability to use any powderised edible substance, which means that protein sources such as insects (which are easier to rear in mass quantities than large vertebrates) can be presented in a form that's more appetising to those who are more used to the idea of eating animals with only two or four legs.

[Asmo]

Why should that matter? Gravity can be approximated by using rotating sections on the station/spacecraft, or if the engines are powerful enough to accelerate at 1G for most of the journey, then the decks can be arranged and designed to be used that way when the ship is under way.
Failing that, and if for some reason you've not seen fit to redesign your printers for microgravity operation, then just place the damn thing the right way up in a centrifuge and be done with it.

Well presumably the physical measurement tolerances for printing a meal are much, much less finicky than say, the physical tolerances required to get micro-circuitry working properly. So there's plenty of scope for advancements and short-cuts to be made.
I'm not sure why you think electricity is salient, since you can't eat it unless you're a robot. It's entirely possible that at some point we could face an abundance of electricity while still having trouble finding something actually edible to put on our plates.

The "solving world hunger" thing presumably comes from this machine's ability to use any powderised edible substance, which means that protein sources such as insects (which are easier to rear in mass quantities than large vertebrates) can be presented in a form that's more appetising to those who are more used to the idea of eating animals with only two or four legs.
That works? Awesome! I've seen it in science fiction but I don't know of it being done in real life. If it has I apologize. I'm still trying to catch up to modern scientific advancements. Being a Primitivist for a while tends to wreck one's understanding of such things.
Sure it may be that in the future printers will be faster, but they aren't a solution right now. Electricity is important because the people who need the food most, like the majority of Africa, don't have access to the amount and quality of electricity it takes to run a 3D printer. Again, that may change, but it's not sensible now.
I wonder if it would be even more efficient to get the protein from leguminous plants and other sources vegans would use. I suppose that this technology could be used to pack a lot of nutritional value in small spaces. Malnutrition is a bit different from hunger, but it's just as important if not more.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

That works? Awesome! I've seen it in science fiction but I don't know of it being done in real life. If it has I apologize. I'm still trying to catch up to modern scientific advancements. Being a Primitivist for a while tends to wreck one's understanding of such things.

No spacecraft or space stations with rotational or acceleration-based gravity have been built yet, but the basic physics has been known about since Newton formulated his Laws of Motion (if not longer). If you take a bucket of water and spin it round on the end of a rope quickly enough, then the water will stay in the bucket. This same physical principle is how gravity on a rotating section of a spacecraft would work. The other method possible with current technology is based on the same physical principles that push you back in your seat when you're in an accelerating vehicle.


Sure it may be that in the future printers will be faster, but they aren't a solution right now. Electricity is important because the people who need the food most, like the majority of Africa, don't have access to the amount and quality of electricity it takes to run a 3D printer.

The problems African countries are experiencing have more to do with economics than agronomy. Cash crops and food aid have the side effect of pushing out local farmers, who find their land bought up by multinationals and the surplus they used to sell in local markets has fewer customers because they can't compete on price with free. Hence they have less or no money, meaning they have to sell their land if they own it (perhaps to one of those multinationals growing cash crops!), or otherwise find some other means of subsistence, usually one in which they're unable to grow their own food and sell any surplus for income. This feeds into all sorts of other problems which contribute to conditions likely to bring about famine.


Again, that may change, but it's not sensible now.

There is much more scope for improving electricity generation than there is for improving food production, of which plenty is being produced already, enough to stuff everyone to the gills twice over. The current issues with food production are enormous levels of waste and distributional problems which capitalism appears to be constitutionally incapable of solving.


I wonder if it would be even more efficient to get the protein from leguminous plants and other sources vegans would use. I suppose that this technology could be used to pack a lot of nutritional value in small spaces. Malnutrition is a bit different from hunger, but it's just as important if not more.

Soyburgers or bugburgers? Personally I think it would take a lot of work to make either of them pass the gag test, let alone make them things that people would willingly choose to eat, given other choices.