![]() ![]() Can you even imagine? Cattle are are also responsible for a tremendous amount of greenhouse gas emissions globally, about a quarter of all human-activity-related methane comes from cows. For example, it takes approximately as much water to grow a pound of beef as a single-family home of 4 uses in one week. As a culture, we have a voracious appetite for steaks and burgers, but raising cattle for consumption is outrageously hard on the planet. ![]() Michael Spector addresses them in this excellent New Yorker piece. There are arguments to be made for laboratory-grown steaks. Gabor Forgacs, the man behind Modern Meadows’ manufactured meat, talking about the benefits of bioprinted meat. ![]() If the stem cells for your burger came from cows that were grass-fed and organically raised, is your GMO meat then considered to be organic? If the animal is not killed for its meat, then is it vegan? Or is the whole thing a moot point because it’s GMO? Does sustainability trump genetic engineering concerns? I really just don’t know. But the mind boggles with questions raised by this technology. It’s the ultimate in humane beef, when you think about it the animal doesn’t die for our meal. There’s a wonderfully aptly-named company Modern Meadow that aims to let us have our cows and eat them too. Space age Viktor Frankensteins don’t have to go and rob graves by the light of the moon any longer, they can just click here to purchase a 3D bioprinter and bioinks to whip up some skin and bone tissue. The appeal in medicine, of course, is to heal patients more quickly and efficiently. I like this summary of the process from artist Perrin Ireland: Building a burger from bioinks for human consumption.Ĭonstructive printing does exist it’s used experimentally in regenerative medicine. Imagine buying printer cartridges in hamburger or chicken flavors instead of red, green, and blue. C onstructive printing instead of transformative. Cobbling together an cocoa sneaker from melted chocolate:īut there’s another aspect to 3D food printing – the idea of building food instead of reshaping it. There’s a very quirky, appealing aspect to this technology think of taking cake batter, bread dough, masa – anything edible that can be squirted through a tube – and transforming it into a specialty shape. I’m talking about using a 3D printer to print out food, and for those of you who can’t quite wrap your brain around it watch this two-minute video that demonstrates how you can “build” some Staples is selling these ABS and PLA plastic cartridge refills for $49.99 each.I am completely flabbergasted at this Jetsons-meets- Chickienobs notion that one day in the not-so-distant future we’ll most likely have the ability to push a button on a kitchen device and be delivered a steak or burger. The Cube printer is able to print items up to 5.5 x 5.5 x 5.5″ and has cartridges available with 16 different colors. Additional templates are available online and designers can create their own templates to print from the printer. The printers will work on Windows or Mac computers and come with 25 free 3-D templates designed by professional artists. The printers are ready to work right out of the box and support Wi-Fi for wireless printing. The printers are Cubify’s Cube 3D Printers and are available for $1299.99(USD). The printers that are available at Staples come from a company called 3D Systems. That is all about to change with office supply retailer Staples announcing that it now has 3D printers available directly from its website. The company says that some Staples locations will also have 3D printers in their store by the end of June. The problem is that 3D printers can be pretty expensive, and you can’t just walk into most retailers and buy one. 3D printing is a fantastic way to rapidly prototype something that you’re trying to design or develop for business or personal use. ![]()
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