A Look at the Rapidly Expanding World of 3-D Printed Food

By Food & Wine
Updated July 13, 2017
The thought of a computer cooking your meals may seem like something out of the Jetsons, but when it comes to kitchen technology, few ideas are more exciting than 3-D printed food. From intricately designed breakfasts to customized airplane food, check out all the ways 3-D printing may change the future of eating.
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Reinventing Airline Food

If flight attendants could print a customized meal to a flyer’s specifications that would beat the heck out of those terrible little warmed up trays. That is the basis of a concept put together by a group of students in India. Passengers could order a wide variety of foods from a touch screen at their seat. They could be freshly made (or at least freshly printed) in the back—with no real need for additional staff.

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Cocktail Ice

© Suntory Holdings Limited / TBWA HAKUHODO+HAKUHODO

Using a reverse 3-D printing process often called 3-D subtraction, engineers working with Beam Suntory, the makers of the reigning World's Best Whiskey, created ice in the shapes of architectural landmarks, animals, astronauts and more.

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Sculpted Chocolate Eggs

© Ann Charlott Ommedal/Bompas & Parr

Nothing says Easter like chocolate eggs. And nothing says "Creepy Easter" like a chocolate egg sculpted to look exactly like your face. In order to pull off the fully customized eggs, the mad scientists from Bompas and Parr, first scan your face and 3-D print it in nylon, which is then wrapped around a plastic mold. From there, they line the molds in chocolate and a few hours later a fully formed chocolate face is ready to terrify children everywhere.

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Tiny, Edible Ecosystems

Dutch food engineer Chloé Rutzerveld uses 3-D printing technology to create a hard-to-explain snack called Edible Growth. She prints a flaky shell filled with agar—a flavorless gelatinous substance—which nourishes a mixture of seeds and spores. After just a couple of days, those seeds and spores sprout into greens and mushrooms. What you’re left with, really, is a perfect, tiny bite of fresh salad.

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