PhysOrg runs a story on the implications of 3D printers for the food industry.
The use of 3D printers has the potential to revolutionize the way food is manufactured within the next 10 to 20 years, impacting everything from how military personnel get food on the battlefield to how long it takes to get a meal from the computer to your table..
The article attributes the following to "Hod Lipson, Ph.D., a professor of engineering at Columbia University and a co-author of the book Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing"
3D printing is a good fit for the food industry because it allows manufacturers to bring complexity and variety to consumers at a low cost. Traditional manufacturing is built on mass production of the same item, but with a 3D printer, it takes as much time and money to produce a complex, customized product that appeals to one person as it does to make a simple, routine product that would be appealing to a large group. ... Users could choose from a large online database of recipes, put a cartridge with the ingredients into their 3D printer at home, and it would create the dish just for that person. The user could customize it to include extra nutrients or replace one ingredient with another.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:16PM
That's not a phrase that raises the appetite, I've gotta admit.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:47PM
But it is this part" "how military personnel get food " that really raises concerns.
Did Dr. Hod say anything about "shingles" as the base platform for the 3-d printing?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:22PM
Basically you plug in your food printer, attach your green-corn-paste-tube, your cyan-corn-paste-tube, and of course the magenta-corn-paste-tube. And then to alter texture you have your BK-hardening-soy-paste and clear-hardening-soy-paste.
I foresee the food printer being fairly cheap, but the tubes will be overpriced by 10000% to offset the cost. And of course they will contain DRM so only legitimate tubes can be used due to "safety" concerns.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday July 14 2015, @09:08PM
I'll just leave this here [schlockmercenary.com] and let it speak for itself.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:27PM
Finally, we can spec out a great recipe and have it replicated by a machine over and over with machine efficiency and consistency.
RIP, shitty chefs.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:45PM
I saw the first line and swore you were going to enter McDonalds territory there, or gross TV dinner territory.
Short of food safety violations or being totally stoned/drunk out of their minds, I don't think its possible for a sober and semi-conscious home cook to create something as foul as a Mcdonalds burger. That stuff isn't even meat! The bun isn't even bread! The condiments are basically boiled down kool aid made with corn syrup! I've done a lot of cooking. Being honest, and not really giving a F what people think of my cooking, I can publicly admit the only way to make good food is to make a lot of crap food, and I've made a lot of crap food, a lot of crap burgers. None as bad as McDonalds burgers. Ever. Even at my worst.
Cooking is a lot like coding or carpentry in that no one like to admit in public but the only way you make good stuff is shoveling out a lot of awful stuff first. Yet, in carpentry I've never made anything quite as useless as walmart particle board furniture. I've made what boils down to firewood, but at least it burns non-toxic. Lets not get started on 1997 era perl CGI scripts, hey, it freakin worked, OK? and I haven't written stuff that bad since '97, too.
I'm just saying, given past experience with machine-like precision, anything, for consumers, you'd like to think you'll get something exotic, but market pressure or economic pressure or WTF pressure means you'll mostly get vomit in a bag and be told by tv that you like it that way.
Its kind of like some pie in the sky stuff about TV, imagine how it could uplift our culture and educational system, but 99% of what we ended up with was hillbilly hand fishin and beavis n butthead and ouch thats my balls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:08PM
Yeah I wouldn't call the ex-cons who reheat pre-cooked food at Applebee's chefs. I only assume they are ex-cons because the amount of over-spicing they do leads me to believe they learned to cook in prison and the fact the only spices they know are salt and pepper.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:36PM
it takes as much time and money to produce a complex, customized product that appeals to one person as it does to make a simple, routine product that would be appealing to a large group
Not with any printer I've used, or heard of, or seriously heard argued, other than basically IP violations (making unlicensed car crash repair parts, for example, rather than paying list price for real parts that are marked up 500x so merely printing for 10x cost is a great deal) or spaced out imagination.
Honestly I'm not even sure what the author means. That design work for more complicated custom stuff is cheaper and easier than simple mass produced stuff. Uh, OK. Or maybe that the time value of money / capital is infinitely low such that its OK to invest $2K in a printer that is infinitely slow compared to an assembly line, in fact cheaper, Uh, OK. Or maybe that people in herd mode don't make purchasing decisions off buying the exact same thing as the guy on tv (see iDevices or whatever). Uh OK. Another LOL is cheap bulk styrene beads for injection molding are somehow going to become more expensive than precision manufactured PLA. Isn't styrene about $3/kg but the PLA I use is about $30/kg? I mean, there's some basic chemistry limitations here, not just bulk vs small quantity issues.
Another oddity is space aliens descend and give us a warp drive which makes 3-d printers, and 3-d printers only, cost 100x less and 100x faster yet magically the same magic wouldn't make injection molding 100x lower capex and 100x lower delivered cost. Because admitting reality would screw up the narrative.
I see printing as a cool hobby. Much like the cheapest or fastest consumer way to communicate or build a radio isn't building their own ham radio gear, but it is a hell of a lot of fun. In the long run I figure citizen ownership of 3-d printers will approach the soldering iron / table saw range. Nothing wrong with that, either.
(Score: 2) by penguinoid on Tuesday July 14 2015, @10:32PM
How about if we make a 3D printer that can make other 3D printers*, and then use space solar plants to provide obscene amounts of energy?
* something capable of such a feat would probably have to be at least the size of a bacterium
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:40PM
2d printers are already used for food . . . photo cakes. Edible ink on cornstarch paper or similar, that's then applied to the surface of the cake.
The nutritional value is basically zero, though.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:50PM
My MiL semi-retired from cake decorating before it was trendy food network BS and was more a cottage industry, anyway the point is even 5-10 years ago you could get frozen 3-d printed flowers, custom printed by species, or pay up maybe $20K to get a frosting printer for flowers (a bit out of her league).
So 3-d printing with frosting has been a "thing" for a long time with cake decorators, at least the "spare no expense" wedding cakes.
Also if you have contacts in the cake decorating biz you can buy licensed legal cake decorations that are 3-d printed so you can get a thomas the tank engine thats totally legal and slap that dude on the kids cake.
(Score: 2) by Translation Error on Tuesday July 14 2015, @07:50PM
(Score: 1) by stigmata on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:25PM
Yup - I could see this going down the Keurig route and manufacturers implementing a DRM scheme to prevent "refills" or "generics". Although I could see how you may want to avoid a questionable "generic" food cartridge that could contain heavy metals or some such nonsense.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:38AM
I believe the difference with the Keurig machine is like Starbucks Coffee. Its not a good deal economically; rather its showmanship that one is successful. You want it in other people's face, like fancy cars and designer clothing, so someone can make do like he's better than someone else.
The whole idea is conspicuous consumption. A public display that you have so much wealth you can squander it.
Its supposed to give the illusion to other well-off people that you are a better investment than someone else who is all dirtied up with tools of his trade, and has no time to practice the finesse of talking to well-off people.
The food printers are apt to be in the kitchen, away from presentation to the customer.
I get the idea that the most cost effective solution will win out... just like those women who take the calls on the "1-976-HOT-SEXX" lines.
Good luck enforcing copyright on images... I believe the best solution the industry could do is like the agreement on social venues that cover music played on the premises.
Otherwise all we do is drive anyone who abides by copyright law out of business, while the guy who will print anything gets all the business.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:12PM
Yeah but most Keurig are in houses and nobody knows but the supermarket cashier.
My impression of their "thing" is you can do muddy stale water for like ten cents per cup, or go to a coffeehouse and pay ten bucks per cup, and there's not a whole lot in between, at least not convenient, at least until the Keurig came along at like 75 cents per cup.
My wife used to go to starbucks on a semi regular basis, in her opinion the coffee was better than sanka instant, but I got her a keurig and she says its almost as good as starbucks but 1/10th the cost so we net save some money. I don't drink coffee so its hard to sell her on brewing ten cups at a time using ground coffee in a machine.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:09PM
a) Traditional manufacturing is built on mass production of the same item,
b) but with a 3D printer, it takes as much time and money to produce a complex, customized product that appeals to one person as it does to make a simple, routine product that would be appealing to a large group.
The two types of "b)" (complex/customized and simple/routine) may cost the same as each other, but they still cost a hell of a lot more than a).
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:25PM
You can only 3D print paste.
Meat paste, vegatable paste, fruit paste, and grain paste with minimal textural variation. The processing will also destroy most insoluble fiber.
For home-use, everything would have to be pasteurized and the equipment would be difficult to clean from a food safety standpoint.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:47PM
Food printing is still in beta
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @01:31AM
There are some inherent limitations to the technology.
You can't print a steak or a whole vegetable and you can't use anything that is fresh.
You can put a meat slurry into a mold and let it solidify into a gel-like texture if you add agar. You can make complex corn masa shapes and deep-fry them to get tortilla crisps. You can make a pre-pasteurized butternut squash ravioli with a anti-oxidant-infused butter and sage sauce.
(Score: 1) by Hauke on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:47AM
Tea! Earl Grey! Hot!
TANSTAAFL
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:52AM
If SN ever decide to launch their own version of this tech, I ain't buyin it.