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Andrew Smith's avatar

Here's a really good "pro" from all this: as a consumer, I'm very likely to be exposed to very high quality food, from a much wider variety of sources, and for less money (theoretically) than before. I'm excited to see what today's creative chefs and owners will create with a new infusion of technology.

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BrianAlfred1983's avatar

Absolutely, in this case, we should expect to see a rise in food quality, not only in the restaurant industry but food products in general at the grocery store in theory, could be good-looking, taste great, have amazing nutritional content, and have a very long shelf life.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

This is why, when people hearken for the "good old days", I always say, "no thanks! I'm good here today."

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BrianAlfred1983's avatar

Yeah , I'm good with the here and now. I always say that I don't ever go backwards, I only forward.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I am not a fan of starting a fire with sticks.

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Ross Bingham's avatar

Interesting article!

Do you suppose technologies like food printing would ever pose a threat to the culinary industry? Or the agricultural industry?

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BrianAlfred1983's avatar

I do think that food printing like something similar to 3D printing with edible material could one day threaten the culinary industry for sure. It could possibly eliminate the need for someone to prepare and cook your food. If food printing or replicating doesn't threaten the human element in the food industry, because that's really what we are talking about here, then AI, automation, and robotics will definitely weed out the human element eventually.

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Ross Bingham's avatar

It’ll be an interesting dynamic to navigate for food professionals. I would imagine that whatever substrate food printers would have to be some kind of homogeneous, organic gel, likely derived from kelp or algae. Something incredibly sustainable. Why, then, grow food when you can print it? But maybe there’ll always be a place for farming.

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BrianAlfred1983's avatar

As far as farming is concerned I think that big agricultural productions will some day be taken over by food printing or replication of some kind and the actual growing of food will probably be seen as a niche market for the wealthy or something done out of necessity by the very poor.

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Ross Bingham's avatar

Yeah I could see that. I think it’d probably come down to which process is cheaper. If food printing reaches the tipping point of costing less than industrial farming, I could see it taking over the fast food industry, pet food, supermarket supply, and eventually traditional large scale agriculture becomes irrelevant.

Maybe. 🤔

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