Probably because I am trying to be focused on dieting and
healthy eating any article promising to make the journey a little easier
catches my attention. Often the
articles are a worthwhile read and sometimes they are just too interesting not
to share. When I saw that experiments
were successfully being completed in the 3D printing of “designer food” I had
to read the article. It tickled my
funny bone and my imagination so of course I had to share. If nothing else, it certainly falls under
the heading of “random thoughts”.
In 1970 Alvin Toffler wrote and published a book called
“Future Shock”. The premise of the book
was basically “Too much change in too short a period of time”. People of my mother’s generation, for
instance, were more than likely born into households that did not have
electricity and quite possibly no indoor plumbing (my mother was 1920’s rural,
eastern European). Not only did these
people see running water, indoor plumbing and electricity introduced into their
everyday lives, but also the mass production of automobiles, air travel and the
moon landing. That’s a lot for people
to accept. Mr. Toffler maintained in
his book that the accelerated rate of technological and social change left
people disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and
disorientation”. He popularized the
term “information overload”.
My mother is really the only meter I have to judge the
premise, and looking back, the changes and innovations that took place during
the 6+ decades of her life were truly astounding.
Although she readily embraced many modern conveniences she
also rejected many because, I believe, she just couldn’t wrap her thought
processes around them or the need for them.
She learned to drive when she was in her forties (so I know she embraced
automobiles), she enjoyed television and movies and welcomed the convenience of
keeping in touch by telephone so obviously she adapted well. To the day she died she would not admit to believing
that man walked on the moon. Me? … I’m
on the fence on that one. Some of the
smaller technologies, well, she steadfastly held on to her tried and true way
of doing things. Although loath to admit it, looking back now, I think she was
right in some instances. I, more often
than not, chop my veggies with a knife and cutting board because I KNOW it’s
faster than hauling out the food processor and fiddling with the damn
thing. It’s also a much easier
cleanup. One cutting board plus one
knife to be washed and I’m done – the food processor is a bitch to clean
properly! I do not own a bread
maker. I find it can be somehow
therapeutic to knead the dough and shape it into loaves that smell heavenly
when they are baking. Admittedly, I do
not make homemade bread on a regular basis (for those who do, no doubt the
bread maker is a god-send) so at my house the bread is a “treat” and worth the
extra effort.
When I look at the time frame of the original “Future Shock”
theory it rather amuses me. Mr.
Toffler’s book discusses future shock in terms of “super-industrial” change
that took place over the course of decades.
Decades!
Let me tell you I am in FUTURE SHOCK right now! Never mind change over the course of decades
… or even years. Every time I look at a
news article or magazine cover I see something that I can’t quite wrap my
simple little mind around. And, it
seems to be on an almost daily basis. Daily!
The first I heard about the concept of 3D printers was on
“The Big Bang Theory” … it was amusing.
Then I saw an episode of “Law and Order” (or possibly “CSI”)
in which someone printed a 3D gun … the thought was frightening! But I made that annoying “pfffft” sound and
went about my life thinking that 3D printers were well into the sci-fi future.
Pardon me while I take a little side path in my narrative
here (I promise it will all make sense in a minute).
I do not generally read sci-fi but I am rather invested in
the “In Death” series by J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts). The books take place in the not too distant
future and to Ms. Robb/Roberts’ credit she has come up with some believable yet
futuristic inventions of the imagination; flying cars (which are now being
developed … you can Google it), privacy screens, lots of fancy police
investigation type stuff, really cool tech type stuff, household droids and my
favorite – the “Autochef”. Now the
Autochef is an appliance that I imagine looks much like a microwave/convection
oven that you can program for freshly prepared meals. For instance, if I have a craving for pasta, one daughter has a
craving for prime rib and one daughter has a craving for lobster tails (and
mine most certainly would) I could just program each meal into the AutoChef and
presto-chango out pops everyone’s meal, ready to eat. I would not mind have one of those gadgets around the house. But like the 3D printed gun I once again
made that annoying “pfffft” noise and thought to myself “yeah, right, not in my
life time”.
I really need to stop making that noise because the
3D printer is very much here, albeit probably out of normal household reach for
most people $$-wise, and it does print plastic replicas of yourself like it did
on Big Bang Theory – still amusing. And
it does print guns – still scary. It
also prints almost anything else that imagination can program into a computer. Things like car parts, bicycles, a YouTube
video claims it can print a house in 20 hours, prosthetic limbs (very cool!!),
artificial body parts (made from live cells, very, very cool!!) and, are you
ready for it? – Food.
The AutoChef has arrived!
Okay, I’m back on track now.
A company called Systems
& Material Research Corporation has just been given a $125,000 grant from NASA to create a “universal food synthesizer” for the 3D printing of food. NASA believes a machine like Anjan Contractor’s, a mechanical engineer, could help to feed astronauts on long space flights where traditional foods will not keep. In the future, this machine may also allow restaurants and dieters to customize food to meet certain nutritional counts and taste preferences. (www.huffingtonpost.com)
According to Huffington Post’s Bianca Bosker, instead of eating a quarter of a
donut to cut calories, you instead might be able to buy a whole pastry from the
corner deli, then watch the donut 3D printed before your eyes – with one
quarter the calories and just he right amount of fiber to bring you up to your
daily minimum. Now you’ve got my
attention!
“Novelty foods will be
where food printing starts”. With the
help of Chef David Arnold of the French Culinary Institute Lipton and his
colleagues at Cornell have experimented with printing food. So far, their project included a cookie with
the Cornell ‘C’ embedded within it and sea scallops shaped like the space
shuttle. (www.newsdaily.com)
The lab succeeded in
printing what Lipton calls “data driven cookies”, He and his colleague,
Hod
Lipson (those two names in the same lab must
make for some interesting conversations) each compiled
information about their height, weight, body mass index, daily schedule and
caloric deficit for the day, then used 3D printers to print two cookies that
each accounted for 10 percent of their respective caloric deficits.
“They are both the same
size cookies,” explained Lipton, “but composed of different ingredients based
on our nutritional requirements.”
Nutritionally correct
designer food!
In the future, Lipton
hopes this technology can make meals healthier while also keeping them simple. “The basic issue is enforcement of
diet. Somewhere between picking up the
kids at school and running around, your diet plan goes from making dinner at
home to ‘let’s get McDonald’s’” Lipton envisions a system that uses 3D
printing to quickly produce meals based on data that describes someone’s daily
activity, diet, metabolic requirements, medical conditions, etc. “Everything could be used to tweak the meal
to be a little better.”
To date four large food
companies are experimenting with 3D printed food to develop new edibles. The future of this technology will
definitely be geared towards people with strict dietary regimes such as weight
loss, pregnancy or the elderly.
There are a few drawbacks
to printing food. The printing process
works by building the food from the ground up, layer by layer. This means that the printer is limited to
using products that can be squeezed out through a syringe. The work focuses on developing flavors and
textures that work in the printer.
“Anything can taste like anything”.
Build a nutritionally correct and healthy cheeseburger and it may not be
ground beef, cheese and bread that you are actually getting. The mind boggles as to what it may actually
contain?
Since NASA is
funding a not insignificant part of the research they are looking for food that
At this point in time
Lipton admits, “It will be a long time before it is refined for wider
consumption.”
Of course, the food out of
the printer is not cooked in any way – you still have to take care of that part
of it yourself. It’s a pretty
intriguing concept for meal preparation, alas, it’s not quite the AutoChef I
was so excited about.
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