Will 3D Printers Manufacture Your Meals?

“In fact, foods created by printers have already hit shelves. “A lot of people don’t know this, but all the microwave pancakes available in supermarkets in the Netherlands are printed,” says Kjeld van Bommel, a researcher at the Dutch Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO in Dutch). Van Bommel calls the pancakes “two-and-a-half-D-printing,” because they are formed through a single deposition of batter. Other products out there meet the definition of 3D printing, or additive manufacturing. The U.K.’s Choc Edge, for example, sells printers that melt chocolate and pile it up in layers to create custom shapes. This past Valentine’s Day, FabCafe in Japan crafted 3D-printed chocolate faces of customers’ significant others. Last summer, Google introduced 3D-printed pasta in its employee cafeteria.”

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/will-3d-printers-manufacture-your-meals-15265101