NASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger?

[cynatnite]

Call it food for thought. Or perhaps thought for food: NASA has given a six-month grant to a company developing what could be the world’s first 3-D food printer. And the project’s developer, reports Quartz, an online digital news site, believes the invention could be used to end world hunger.

Quartz explains that the printer is the brainchild of mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor. Being developed by Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corp., it will use proteins, carbohydrates and sugars to create edible food products.

Contractor says one of his primary motivations is a belief that food will become exponentially more expensive in the near future. The average consumer, he told Quartz, will need a more economically viable option.

Some alternative food source options that may be used with the printer include algae, duckweed, grass, lupine seeds, beet leaves and even insects, according to TNO Research, which is working with Contractor on the project.

“I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” said Contractor. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/nasa-awards-grant-3d-food-printer-could-end-194050661.html

[Buzz Clik]

1. Why use a printer to take duckweed and shape it into a leg of lamb?

No one will be better nourished.

[warrior1]

2. aahh the replicator

[cynatnite]

3. That did cross my mind when I read this. n/t

[kentauros]

10. While I thought of C-H-O-N food,

i.e., Frederik Pohl's Heechee story Gateway and the discovery of the food factory converting Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen into food

[newfie11]

4. But will the Monsanto chemicals be there

We have grown so accustom to them!

[Bay Boy]

5. Does someone think that a multi-thousand dollar machine

is going to make 'food' out of thin air?

[Nay]

17. And who could possibly believe this expensive machine will be used to make food for poor

and hungry people? We have tons of real food, right here, right now, and the reason it doesn't get fed to the people who are hungry is because THEY HAVE NO MONEY TO PAY FOR IT. That's the only reason.

[siligut]

20. I believe Contractor is looking toward the future

“I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” said Contractor. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

The distant future.

[SomethingFishy]

24. And when those "tons of food" start disappearing and the price starts going up

that's really going to help the poor

How anyone could think this is a bad thing is beyond me.

Yeah we should just use that money for more drones and then we can start killing people when there is not enough food anymore.

[SomethingFishy]

23. Out of thin air? No. Out of Carbohydrates and proteins..

And I find it odd that many people are making fun of this. The truth is, in the near future humans will not be sustainable if we keep heading in the direction we are going. We need to come up with some way to make food as we are destroying the land needed to grow it.

[scarletwoman]

36. Or, maybe, stop destroying the land? (nt)

[gordianot]

6. Maybe they could concoct some Soylent Green?

[kestrel91316]

7. Not very energy efficient. We already have devices for

converting inedible (to humans) biological materials into edible food. They are called livestock.

Talk about reinventing the wheel. And all with an eye toward making somebody very rich at the expense of the already poor.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. Livestock is a chore is space.

The cattle keep drifting away in the low gravity while they look for pastures to graze in.

[newfie11]

12. Lol

[naaman fletcher]

8. I hope they go light on the carbs. nt

[denverbill]

9. Sure, just insert this $30,000 food cartridge and you can print 100 loaves of bread!

Gee this project seems like a real winner. I don't know how you can possibly 'print' food less expensively than you can grow and ship it.

[galileoreloaded]

13. can we lace the food with a sterilizing agent?

the last thing we need is to boost carrying capacity even further.

[yodermon]

14. tea, earl gray, hot n/t

[backscatter712]

25. You'll get a substance that's almost, but not quite entirely, unlike tea. n/t

[SidDithers]

28. /thread...

Sid

[kestrel91316]

15. We'll make this planet uninhabitable long before we hit 12 billion.

We need to stop with this idiotic idea that we can just keep reproducing exponentially with no consequences.

[Nay]

18. Yes, that too. Let's stop asking this question: "How can we feed 12 (14, 18, 200) billion people"

and start asking "How can we humanely reduce the population of the planet with the least disruption/destruction of human beings?"

[Warren DeMontague]

27. Who is "we"?

Are you posting From Guinea-Bissou?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

[Bake]

16. I didn't know you could eat plastic ...

Replicator, my ass.



Bake

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Call me an outlier, but I prefer the soylent blue.

http://www.rachelaaron.net/soylent/history.html

[Matariki]

21. Wow. Reminded of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age

[Orrex]

22. Lots of kneejerk responses to this technology

I'm glad that we're all focused on the limitations and shortcomings while dismissing possible benefits.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. And this is surprising why?

MONSANTO WILL BE 3D PRINTING DRONES TO PORNIFY TWITTER FACEBOOK APPLE CAN'T PROGRAM MY REMOTE AND I MISSED THE MENTALIST AND WHY DO THINGS HAVE TO CHANNNNNNGE??!?>!?!?!?!?



...in other words, welcome to DU.

[madinmaryland]

32. I can think of a brazilian reasons it might work, but first, can you tell

me HOW MUCH IS A BRAZILIAN???

[Initech]

29. To quote Lewis Black:

"I've seen how this ends. And it ends with Chartlon Heston running down the street screaming Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!!"

[KamaAina]

30. I'll have two slices with extra protein layer, please

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0521/NASA-funds-3-D-pizza-and-chocolate-printer

NASA has doled out a research grant to develop a prototype 3D printer for food, so astronauts may one day enjoy 3D-printed pizza on Mars...

To prove his idea works, Contractor printed chocolate. Now, he's aiming to build a more advanced prototype to print a pizza, according to Quartz.

The system will start by "printing" a sheet of dough, followed by a layer of tomato "sauce," which will consist of the powder mixed with water and oil. Instead of traditional toppings, the 3D-printed pizza will be finished off with a layer of protein, which can be derived from animals, milk or plants, Contractor told Quartz.

edit: "sauce"! Then again, right here on Earth, your grocer's freezer contains "Pizza & Wyngz" (sic).

[derby378]

31. Hate to be a Debbie Downer and all that...

...but long before the global population reaches 12 billion, I predict someone is going to launch nukes. It'll be a war over natural resources and raw materials, and it's going to be very short and it will suck really hard.

[cliffordu]

33. Yep. The war for water is going to kill us all before that.

[cherokeeprogressive]

34. End world hunger? In a word... nnnnnnnnope.

[scarletwoman]

35. Would you eat that shit? I sure wouldn't eat that shit.

And I find it incredibly offensive if these brainiacs think that they could feed that shit to poor people. You KNOW that rich people won't be eating that shit!

[cynatnite]

37. I suppose it would depend on how hungry you were...

I think if we were in the position of starvation that so many people around the world are in, we'd probably be surprised at what people would eat if it meant saving their lives.