3D printing has become one of the most positive advances in tech over the last decade. It offers the ability to create important mechanical parts within minutes.
What’s so impressive about this is that it’s also been able to create parts for machinery. That have long been out of service. It has saved money in a whole host of ways too. One area that’s recently start to be explore is the use of 3D printing to create food.
High Quality Vegan Alternatives
This is perhaps the most astonishing area where 3D printing is making waves. What a lot of people complain about with vegan alternatives is the texture of the food. It doesn’t feel right when eating it, which diminishes the experience.
The taste of the meat alternatives isn’t actually the main problem. This is where 3D printing has come in. You can actually find a great range of different meat alternatives. Such as lamb flanks, that are offer through 3D printing. What 3D printing is able to do is create more complex textures in plant-based meat alternatives.
So, instead of the taste being right but the texture of the food being off. 3D printing is actually able to offer the consumer a much higher quality of food. Imagine a perfect steak that is cruelty free, 3D printing means that’s no longer a pipe dream.
Solve Food Poverty
Part of the problems facing the world are due to the inability to produce enough food. At an affordable price, to feed everyone. At the moment there are a lot of countries that don’t have the ability to produce cheap food.
Either due to a lack of adequate farming land or not enough agricultural ability to farm the land that is available. 3D printing offers an alternative to traditional food production. It could allow for food poverty to become a thing of the past.
Because 3D printing is significantly cheaper than producing food in the traditional manner, as well as being significantly faster. It could allow countries with food production shortfalls to combat this problem.
Many scientists believe that top technology business companies such as Redefine Meat are leading the way in this area. It could become the true way to ensure that no-one ever goes hungry.
There are also some economists who think that this is the first step to a post-scarcity society. This will obviously lead to the world working in a different way. But 3D printing of food could be the way to do it.
Lab Grown Meat
This is likely to be a few years away at the moment. But lab grown meat could be the solution to eating real meat without any cruelty.
Growing meat in a lab will use a different technique to the current method. Which involves the slaughter of sentient beings.
If this can be process into 3D printers. Then it means that there could be widespread access to cruelty free real meat in the future.
This would be perfect for vegans who still enjoy the taste of meat. But find it morally impossible to eat it in its current form.
It would also allow traditional carnivores the ability to move away from that form of meat. Eat it in a less harmful way.
It’s not just About the Way
Using the 3D print meat from a lab would mean that current methods of farming animals wouldn’t be need.
This would therefore reduce the impact on the environment.
As would mean that the world is being look after far better as well as reducing the suffering of animals.
This is obviously different to the current ways that 3D print meat is creat, but it would provide a logical progression going forwards.
If more time and funds are dedicate to this, then it could improve life for many people.
Other Future Developments
Moving on from this also means that there’s room for other developments to take place. A device that can grow its own supplies within itself would be the obvious end goal.
This would allow everyone to have an endless supply of food, no matter their financial position. It would lead to certain companies struggling in terms of making profits, but when it comes to the good of humanity, this is a small price to pay.
This level of technology is obviously unlikely to see the light of day in any of our lifetimes. Not only is the technology not ready for it yet, but we as a species aren’t ready for it either.
However, if we are able to take strides towards this end goal, then it could be a positive step for all of humanity. It will at the very least make our time on earth a more pleasant experience and at the most it could save the planet. 3D printing could end up being the way the world moves forward into the next century and beyond.
