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| Food Printing May Help Solve Future World Hunger |
If you have never heard of food printing, that may change
within the next few decades. This is because food printing technology, now
being developed for astronauts, may become commonplace in the home in coming
decades.
The idea for food printing technology is currently being
funded by NASA, who needed a powdered food supply that would keep fresh up to
fifteen years, as space missions grow longer.
Reconstituted powders used in food printing machines last up to 30 years
when stored in their containers.
Just what is food printing?
Food printing essentially takes powdered foods like
proteins, breads, and vegetable bases and combines them with water and oil to
reconstitute them into edible food. The first food being developed right now is
pizza, which is an easy food to make and appealing to most people. The food
printer uses a 3D printing process, which first prints a layer of dough, then
sauce and finally a layer of protein that acts as the topping. It is printed
onto a heated plate, which bakes the pizza as it is printed. This food printing
machine is not quite the same as the replicators in popular science fiction
shows, but it will eventually be developed for home use.
As the world population grows, this may be helpful as food
sources become scarcer. The powders used in the food printing machine can come
from plants like algae and also insects - food sources which are much more
plentiful than beef, chicken and other animal products. As well, since all of
the powders last up to 30 years, there is very little food waste as you will
only print out what you will eat at one setting.
As the food printing machine develops, recipes will come in
the form of open source software, which will measure out what powders should be
used in which layers and how they should be mixed with the oils and water. This
even includes adjusting the recipes for weight loss or illness.
Anjan Contractor, the inventor, envisions a bright future
for his 3D food printing machine. “I
think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12
billion people sufficiently,” says Contractor. “So we eventually have to change
our perception of what we see as food.”
See also: WriteYourselfRich.net
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