Cooking with 3D Printers
The benefits of 3D printed foods
FUTURE PROOF – BLOG BY FUTURES PLATFORM
3D-printed foods aren't a new thing. Or, rather, they are - but the hype around them is not. Ever since additive manufacturing started to become more popularized, in the early years of the 2010s, many started speculating what it would be able to do with food. After all the hype, we can say that it has, to a good extend, delivered on its promises.
COOKING WITH 3D PRINTERS
According to Research Nester, the 3D-printed food market is expected to grow to USD 400 million in 2024. One of the biggest demand drivers is, perhaps not unexpectedly, food customization. Hence, it is no surprise that we tend to see a lot of confectionaries and bakeries increasingly tapping into the utility of 3D-printers to create unique, customized, and artistic cakes and other confectionaries (see, for example, Dinara Kasko and her famous cakes)
Today, much of the food 3D-printing is done by material extrusion or binder jetting. These technologies allow for several types of food to be additively manufactured. For instance, it’s possible to make chocolate, pizza, pancakes, pasta, cheese, jams, frosting, and so on. Essentially, if you can make a puree out of it, you can 3D-print it.
Unfortunately, even if you think 3D-printed pizza is something sent to us down from heaven – who knows? – it still does not come with some drawbacks. After all, the 3D-printed pizza does not come out of the printer cooked; it still needs to go into an oven. And the time to make one may not be any faster, and indeed probably slower, than if you were to make your own from scratch.
Despite this, we shouldn’t despair. 3D-printed food still comes with a lot of benefits, so let’s have a look at a few.
1. CUSTOMIZATION
One of the most appealing aspects of 3D-printed food is that it is highly customizable. This also explains why certain professions, such as confectionaries, have taken it more seriously than others.
Essentially, if you are 3D-printing something, even if it is not food, you can generally accomplish much more creative and complex shapes. Dinara Kasko, mentioned above, focuses on creating intricately-shaped cakes that are near impossible to create without 3D printing.
This customization extends beyond the shape of the printed food, too. It also lends a degree of personalization to what we choose to eat. Most of what you eat today, one would assume, has arrived at that shape through mass production or accident. In fact, only during birthdays or when we bake something at home do we actually take it a step further, by stamping someone’s name or photo on the cake, or by arranging toppings in a specific way.
With 3D-printing, it would be easy to personalize and customize everything to our taste. You could make food take any shape, and even color, you like. How far you could take this depends almost exclusively on how creative you can get. It’s even conceivable that there will be online marketplaces where you can purchase or acquire food “designs,” much like you can download apps, books, and songs today. Today, we already have 3D-printing marketplaces, such as Sculpteo or Shapeways. Extending this to 3D-printed food, where you might be able to purchase a 5-start recipe and design from a world-renowned chef, is not outlandish.
2. HEALTH
One may think that 3D-printed food seems unnatural, perhaps even unhealthy. But there’s a silver lining. Not only is it no less healthy than the food you buy at the supermarket, the fact that you can personalize it the way you want can even make it healthier. Or, at least, make healthy and perhaps less flavorful food look better. So good in fact that you can feed it to a child. If your child doesn’t want to eat spinach or broccoli, why not make it into interesting shapes and in turn make it more appealing?
There are more health benefits, however. With 3D-printed food, you can be extremely precise in the ingredients you use, and in the ratio of protein to carbohydrates and fat. Whether you are on a diet, you are an athlete, or you have specific dietary needs, 3D-printed food allows you to be more scientific about this, and create food that matches your nutritional needs exactly.
3. LESS WASTE
Finally, we can talk about food waste, no doubt one of the greatest challenges we face today. Food waste occurs when more food is made than it is eaten. While this seems like an obvious cause, there isn’t really an obvious solution to this problem.
While 3D-printed food is not the solution, it can definitely be part of the solution. 3D-printed food not only allows us to make exact quantities of food (something a little harder to be so precise about when home cooking or buying from the store) but which can be tailored to individual needs. This means you can at least try to make just enough food that you know you’ll eat and not waste.
On top of that, 3D-printed food has another application. Last year, 2 Dutch students showed us the potential 3D-printing has to reduce food waste. Their company, Upprinting Food, is attempting to take food waste, such as wasted bread, mashing it and mixing it with spices and other ingredients, and 3D-printing it into edible, better-looking, and repackaged snacks. Since we can customize 3D-printed food to our liking, we can see how making new food out of food waste, provided that it is still edible and kept in safe conditions, can help us reduce that waste.
3D PRINTING AND FOOD
At the moment, it may be a bit of a stretch to say 3D-printing is revolutionizing the food industry. We are still pretty far from depending on Star Trek-like food replicators for our daily meals. Nevertheless, it would also be wrong to assume this technology won’t continue to evolve and maybe even carve out its own space in our kitchens. Who knows – one day it may even seriously compete against our much-loved frozen pizza.
Read more about Futures Platform’s consulting services and discover how we can help your organisation succeed into the future
Although wider culinary options are pleasing us, unhealthy diets are inviting chronic illnesses and various health risks. We are urged to eat healthier while the emergence of new technologies and ingredients are rapidly changing our food world. Would you change your diet if your doctor would prescribe the secret ingredient for a healthy life?