“Print food” more and more often means not only “open sealed packaging”: new means of 3D printing of food appear

Met yesterday's CNews article, "Printed Food of the Future: Forget Shops."

The heading is overly optimistic (it’s immediately clear that consumables for replicators will have to be purchased in any case), however, the content of the article informs that the new Solid Freeform Fabrication technology (abbreviated SFF) developed by scientists at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York, USA) ), will allow using hydrocolloids (which will be used as the "ink" of a 3D printer)print chocolate, fried fish, carrots, mushrooms, apple, boiled chicken, banana, boiled pasta, fresh cheese (mozzarella), tomatoes, boiled yolk, butter, marshmallows, ground beef, sauces, whipped cream, mashed potatoes, cakes, white bread, corn porridge, pudding, kneading dough, applesauce, milk, ice cream, sorbet, ground coffee.

The author of the article dreams of avoiding food additives (“printed food promises to be much healthier and healthier”), but the article sets out the facts according to which food is printed as a mixture of food additive E415 (i.e. xanthan gum) and gelatin in water in various proportions that form the basis of the product. It seems that all of the above products will only be imitated by additives in this mixture.

It is appropriate to compare this news with a 2010 article “ Cornucopia will print lunch from a user’s file ” on the Membrane website, which viewed a food printer operating with twelve printheads and developed at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The result of his work looked, really, much tastier.