Soon we may want to buy a new appliance that will revolutionize our food and our eating habits: the 3D printer to create our favourite dish of pasta in the shape, and consistency in the dough! With respect to those who would like to return to the tradition in the kitchen. The protagonist of this revolution is the Italian giant Barilla, by four years in the project alongside the Dutch researchers at the TNO team, that will present this revolutionary idea to the next Cibus, the international exhibition supply scheduled May 9 to 12 in Parma.
The idea of being able to print foods fascinates many market players, Barilla has succeeded building a first printer prototype that at the beginning he managed to print a single piece of dough in 20 minutes, then four in two minutes and now they are preparing to print an entire plate of pasta with roughly the same time. The advantage of this technological innovation is not the speed of execution but of course the possibility for end users to create a totally personalized dining experience, at 360 °. Think you can choose from time to time the dough to be used (whole grain or refined flour), the shape and thickness of the food and get it ready to be cooked to invent every day a new dish … worthy of a Michelin starred chef!
The freedom of 3D modelling design and so in this case to the creation of the perfect “fusilli” faced Barilla with a choice: what is the best format to be printed? To select it Barilla held a contest in collaboration with Thingarage of Rome, a start-up specialized in raising funds for industrial design projects, which received just over 200 proposals and ruled as victors 3 formats: roses, swirls and moons. So in the future, we might eat bouquet of roses with pesto or tomato and not just in our house: the restaurants could adopt online shopping carts or reservation systems to achieve in real-time our favourite dish or delicatessens might print the pasta ready to take home.
Consequences on nutrition of the future could be many and not just “trendy”: think for example on your smart bracelet that records the amount of calories you ingested during the day. You can connect it to the food 3d-printer to define not only the quantity of pasta to ingest but also to choose whether we need today in fibres, vegetables or spices in the most … it certainly would benefit the technology but also our health, or not?
