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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger?
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 worlds first 3-D food printer. And the projects 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 Contractors 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 cant 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
(38,437 posts)No one will be better nourished.
warrior1
(12,325 posts)cynatnite
(31,011 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)We have grown so accustom to them!
Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)is going to make 'food' out of thin air?
Nay
(12,051 posts)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
(12,272 posts)The distant future.
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)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
(4,876 posts)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
(31,893 posts)gordianot
(15,226 posts)kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)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
(45,319 posts)The cattle keep drifting away in the low gravity while they look for pastures to graze in.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)denverbill
(11,489 posts)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
(2,571 posts)the last thing we need is to boost carrying capacity even further.
yodermon
(6,143 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)We need to stop with this idiotic idea that we can just keep reproducing exponentially with no consequences.
Nay
(12,051 posts)and start asking "How can we humanely reduce the population of the planet with the least disruption/destruction of human beings?"
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Are you posting From Guinea-Bissou?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate
Bake
(21,977 posts)Replicator, my ass.
Bake
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Matariki
(18,775 posts)Orrex
(63,084 posts)I'm glad that we're all focused on the limitations and shortcomings while dismissing possible benefits.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)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
(64,920 posts)me HOW MUCH IS A BRAZILIAN???
Initech
(99,909 posts)"I've seen how this ends. And it ends with Chartlon Heston running down the street screaming Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!!"
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)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
(30,252 posts)...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
(30,994 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)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
(31,011 posts)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.