DailyDirt: Will Refill Cartridges For Food Printers Be Insanely Expensive?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The technology for 3D printing is getting better and cheaper all the time, but some folks think the "killer app" for these printing machines is in food preparation. Food printers aren't quite like Star Trek replicators just yet -- nor is there a way to eliminate the scarcity of food. Still, it'll be pretty cool when most households own an oven, stove, microwave oven... and a 3D food printer.

• Peter Thiel's philanthropic foundation has invested in Modern Meadow -- a company that will develop 3D bioprinting techniques for disrupting the current meat industry. Growing edible meat tissue without a farm could be more environmentally friendly, but one of the company's first goals is to just grow a 1-inch long piece of synthetic meat suitable for eating. [url]
• Cornell University has a food printing lab as part of its Fab@Home venture. This group has been working on printing food since 2007, and the researchers speculate that food printers could vastly reduce the time people spend preparing food. [url]
• Burritob0t is an open source project to create a Tex-Mex 3D printer, capable of generating tasty, custom burritos from extruding ingredients such as beans, rice, cheese and salsa onto a tortilla. Unfortunately, lettuce and chunky salsa aren't on this robot's menu -- but perhaps a meat paste could be added... [url]
• Chocolate lovers in the UK might want to thank researchers at the University of Exeter for creating a 3D printer that prints layers of chocolate. These developers want to create a website that anyone can print chocolate creations from -- but they'll probably need a really good Spam filter before they turn that feature on. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: 3d printers, burrito, burritob0t, chocolate, fab@home, food, peter thiel, replicator
Companies: modern meadow