Cooking dinner just got easier.
Barcelona-based startup Natural Machines has developed a 3D printer called "Foodini" that can make food, squeezing edible, fresh ingredients out of capsules to create pizza, spaghetti, mini burgers and more, CNN reported.
Using edible ingredients for printing was a bit trickier than printing with plastics.
"It's the same technology," said Lynette Kucsma, co-founder of Natural Machines, as quoted by CNN, "but with plastics there's just one melting point, whereas with food it's different temperatures, consistencies and textures. Also, gravity works a little bit against us, as food doesn't hold the shape as well as plastic."
While printing food is a fairly magical accomplishment, the printer does come with a couple of practical caveats. The current device only prints the food in preparation for cooking; however, the company plans to develop a future model that will also cook the food to be ready to eat.
And anyone who wants to score a food printer may have to wait a while--Natural Machines plans to offer the device to kitchen professionals first, with a $1,000 version for the average consumer to come later.
According to the company, the printer is aimed to take care of the harder and more time-consuming parts of making food. Foodini, which features a connected touchscreen with cloud-based recipes, is intended to encourage healthy eating by using fresh ingredients while streamlining the food preparation process.
So far, people don't seem fazed by the latest piece of smart home equipment.
"We have done tests and everybody liked the food," said Kucsma. "Take the microwave oven, for example: in the 70s, people were a bit fearful about it, they thought food could be poisoned with radiation or something, but fast forward 30 years, and there's one in every household. This is real food, with real fresh ingredients; it's just prepared using a new technology."
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