Opinion Corner: 3D Printed Food

3D Printing & Food

My roommate linked me to this article about 3D printed food last night. This wasn't completely new information to me, because I heard about it at the Solar Decathlon and green innovations XPO, but I was starled by how quickly this technology is developing and moving onto the market.

In my opinion, 3D printing has fantastic applications in manufacturing because it targets base materials only to the areas where needed (rather than cutting shapes out of plastic or metal sheets and having to throw away or downcycle the scraps), thus saving energy and resources. However, I don't want it in my food.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because my capstone is about food. But I think these little spinach dinosaurs are creepy. How do you get spinach into a printable form? How do you keep it green? You've seen vegetables go bad in the fridge--they turn weird colors when they start breaking down. Moreover, they lose some of their nutritional value the more they break down. I worry about chemical additives--emulsifiers and artificial colors--, which are not real food as far as I'm concerned. It's cute that the kiddos were happy to eat these dinosaur bites, but I really don't think that kids need to be eating any more processed food than they already are. There are other ways to get kids to eat their greens. (I mean, if you really want dinosaurs, you could just use a cookie cutter on a real omelet.)

Of course, not just any kid is going to be able to print out a spinach dinosaur right now. As the original article says,

The company behind it, 3D Systems, is planning to start selling two models of the device later this year. The first one will cost about $5,000 and spins out candies in only one color. The top model, ChefJet Pro, will run you $10,000.

Right now, you're probably going to see these in fancy pants restaurants, printing out fancy chocolate shapes for your fancy dessert. 

However, that's exactly my problem with it: sure it's cool, but does this benefit anyone other than the people who already have money? Is this anything more than another techie toy? I think that this application of 3D printing is a waste of financial and physical resources. I find it hard to believe that so much money is going towards researching the problem of how to make novelty sugar cubes instead of the food distribution problem or the obesity problem. And that's just in the realm of food ethics. That $10k for a ChefJet (forget the money that paid for the research and development behind it) could have gone towards cancer research, solar energy storage research, or any other worthy cause; and instead you could get up and spend 10 minutes to make your own spinach omelet, just like everybody else. As a society, we really don't seem to have our priorities in line.

What do you think?

Would you eat a 3D printed hamburger?

Feel free to comment below!

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