3D printed food: how meat and vegetables personalised by machines can help people eat better

Printed food is made from ingredients that are deconstructed and modified for nutritional content and visual appeal, before being reconstructed as a meal

3D-printed meals can benefit people who have difficulty swallowing, picky children and those with special dietary needs, and could reduce overall food waste

Reading Time:4 minutes

3D-printed meals that look and taste like the real thing are here, and they will help people who have difficulty chewing or swallowing solid food. Photo: SIT-Massey University

Published: 5:15am, 26 Aug 2020Updated: 8:31am, 27 Aug 2020

Broccoli, 3D-printed into unusual shapes to tempt a picky toddler. Beef stew, produced in the same way to make it easy to swallow for an elderly relative. Pork and potatoes, also rendered by a machine for a patient with oral cancer who can’t chew.

Advances in 3D-printing mean printed food is becoming increasingly mainstream. It is deconstructed and modified for nutritional content and visual appeal, before being reconstructed as a meal.

The old and the unwell stand to benefit the most from this food revolution – experts say there is an urgent need to analyse the food and nutritional needs of elderly people, as the proportion of the world’s population over 65 is expected to grow from 25 per cent to 40 per cent by 2030.

“Difficulty swallowing and chewing, together with loss of appetite and changes in the perception of taste and smell, are important factors in the prevalence of malnutrition in the elderly,” says Berta Alvarez, director of research and development at Biozoon, a German company that produces 3D-printed food items.

Alvarez works on the creation of innovative foods with a modified texture – foods designed for the elderly and those with chewing and swallowing problems.

Dysphagia affects more than a third of old people and impairs their ability to consume normal food. Photo: Shutterstock