 |
3D Printed Food Served In German Nursing Homes
German nursing homes are providing oldsters with a taste of the future. Using a cuisine called Smoothfood, the meals use fresh ingredients pureed for easy chewing and swallowing, which are then 3D printed into attractive shapes.
(A tasty repast - or refuture ;))
MUNCHIES: What kind of plates do you serve in the nursing homes? Can you give an example of what is on the menu?
At the moment we have six foods in the project, which we use as reference material: vegetables (cauliflower, peas), meat (chicken, pork), and carbohydrates (potatoes, pasta). These components will be used for the first meals. After the project, other food can be investigated on their printability.How does the 3-D printer produce the food?
It can be compared with a normal inkjet printer, but instead uses food material as “ink.” The material is then printed in layers on a special plate, which is also developed within the project. For the printing, it is important to make sure that the layers merge without visible layer formation, but are strong enough that the food items do not collapse.Can you explain how you can adjust the printer to make it taste and look like the real thing?
The printer is controlled by software where you can program, more or less, every kind of shape. The printing material itself will provide the taste since it’s normally spiced food purée combined with the newly developed texturizing system that will be printed onto the plate. This means that with the printer we cannot adjust the taste, only the shape.
Fans of sf great Larry Niven might be thinking of his food bricks from his 1970 novel Ringworld. Philip K. Dick fans might recall his autonomous food processing system from his 1964 novel Cantata 140.
Take a look at my earlier article Fictional Foodstuffs: The Snacks Of Science Fiction for some of the great science-fictional food processors. I'll leave you with this one that is familiar to most of us.
(Star Trek food synthesizer)
Also, don't miss my 2006 story which has one of my favorite headlines "Hungry? Print Yourself Some Bacon".
Via Munchies.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/28/2014)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Food ")
Chowbotics Salad Robot, Sally
'... gorgeous eating places where we were served entirely by mechanical apparatus.' - Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1912.
Tomatoes From Sun And Seawater
'Hydroponics. Gotta almost do it, if I'm going way out to Mars without much supplies.' - Raymond Z. Gallun, 1961.
In Vitro Meatballs For SciFi Spaghetti
'Large laboratories in every city had produced synthetic food and meats, grown in large test tubes..." - David H. Keller, 1933.
7-Eleven Drone Delivers Chix Sandwich And Slurpee
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'- H. Beam Piper, 1962.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Bat Bot Robotic Flapping-Wing Drone
'The dark birdforms dotted the mountaintops like statues of prehistoric beasts, wings outspread...'
NASA's Astronaut Rescue Ball
'Ball and closely-prisoned man plummeted downward..'
ARM Wants To Build Brain Chips
'Slivers of microsoft, angular fragments of colored silicon...'
Sky Fence - A Drone-Proof Shield Created Over Prison
'There’s still a protective field over the whole thing. It volatilizes anything that tries to get through.'
Geoengineering The Atmosphere For Climate Change
'...a uniform temperature for each degree of latitude the year round.'
Archinaut Orbiting Robotic Factory
'mass-produced only in the orbiting factories...'
Cryonic Preservation - The Last Perk You'll Ever Need
'Is there not also a law providing for voluntary suspension of animation?'
Computers Understand Humans By Watching And Modeling Them
Soon, your computer will be watching you... and judging you.
NASA Asks For Moon To Earth Delivery Ideas
'Authority's 3-g catapult was almost one hundred kilometers long...'
Musk Tunnels Wisely Restrict Drivers
Too many robots.
Robot Swarms Controlled With Augmented Reality
'You're not thinking in enough dimensions...'
MIT's C-LEARN Helps Robots Transfer Learning To Other Robots
'Talk Between Robots radio...'
Mini-Brains In A Dish
'Cultured brains on a slab.'
Rapid Automated Search For Habitable Planets Needed
'I was near enough it now to set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching it for a habitable planet.'
WatchSense Perfect For Fat-Fingered Smartwatch Owners
'Now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components...'
Digital Construction Platform Robot 3D Prints A Building
'It extrudes material like a spider.'
