Cambridge Company Unveils 3D Printed "Fruit" 59
An anonymous reader writes "A Cambridge England company called Dovetailed has created the world's first 3D printed 'fruit'. They use a process of spherification to create little balls of fruit puree, which they then print to form the shape of the given fruit. Images here where you can see a 3D printed raspberry. Vaiva Kalnikait, creative director and founder of Dovetailed, said: 'We have been thinking of making this for a while. It’s such an exciting time for us as an innovation lab. Our 3D fruit printer will open up new possibilities not only to professional chefs but also to our home kitchens – allowing us to enhance and expand our dining experiences. We have re-invented the concept of fresh fruit on demand.'"
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World's first?? Theres a Kickstarter project for a 3D Printer that prints any puree not just fruit.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]
Tell me again when they do it with bacon (Score:1)
Bacon flavored fruit yes?
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Easy [jdfoods.net].
Is this new? (Score:5, Funny)
I have been 3d-printing whipped cream for decades, using a spray cream can.
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Yes but yours isn't being done with a computer that makes worthy of a dozen new patents alone. You can make it two dozen if you replace computer with mobile device and resubmit.
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could be cool project - computer-controlled robot-arm 3D-printing whipped cream using regular spray cream.
Re:ewww (Score:5, Funny)
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You, sir, win two Internets.
Funniest 3D-printer related joke so far.
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Presumably the purees can be stored and used in places like Antarctic bases or even in space. Sounds like a good application to me.
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Yes, they're called JAMS and require all the technology of a Mason jar, sugar and boiling water...
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I hear its really difficult to keep items frozen in the Antarctic
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I was thinking more about the ability to create a variety of food items from raw materials.
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it looks nothing like a raspberry, and a raspberry should be the easiest fruit to reconstitute from little spheres. I’d like to see a 3d-printed apple or banana using this process.
Re:ewww (Score:4, Interesting)
This is glorified juice-filled candy. Whole fruit has all that fiber and other stuff good for someone.
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The only good thing in it is fibre, which gets broken down in a puree.
Vitamin C. And fiber isn't "broken down" in a puree unless it is specifically removed (which is why you should avoid juicers). So while fruits are high in sugar and you shouldn't go crazy on them, whole fruits are a healthy part of your diet.
Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
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None of this matters until we get the results seen in Weird Science. Now THAT I would pay for.
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So Raspberry Pi is the new Beowulf cluster around here, huh? Plus ça change...
This is new..? (Score:1)
Rather strange that people think crapping out fruit puree from a extruder in various shapes is something new when I stopped eating fruit roll-ups decades ago.
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Let's combine this kind [solido3d.com] of 3D printer with fruit roll-ups.
"printed" and "fruit" (Score:3)
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LUDDITE! BURN HIM! He who refuses to suck the cock of 3D printing and Bre Pettis must be SHUNNED and modded down IMMEDIATELY!
CALLING ALL TECHNO-OPTIMIST FUTURISTS TO THREAD #127217!!!
We have an unbeliever !!! Mod down!!!
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I think you got modded down for mentioning Bre Pettis.
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So much better than that nasty fruit you started with. Revolutionary! WE HAVE INVENTED FRUIT THIS DAY!!!!
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You take the fruit. You chop it up real fine, put it through the printer and you get a fruit!
Yum, looks like mango, tastes and smells like durian! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org]
Ding-ding-ding! Give that man a... some gelatine. (Score:2)
From TFA:
In this process, the liquid or puree from the fruit is mixed with a very small amount of a substance called sodium alginate, then quickly placed into a bowl of soluble calcium salt. At this point the liquid or puree forms tiny spheres, almost like caviar, in which a thin skin holds the shape of the liquid inside.
Apple Juice After Spherification
Apple Juice After Spherification
What the 3D printer does is combine these little spheres of flavor with other spheres of the same or varying flavor, to form customized âfruitsâ(TM), which can taste and look however the the user desires.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
As a food additive, sodium alginate is used especially in the production of gel-like foods. For example, bakers' "Chellies" are often gelled alginate "jam." Also, the pimento stuffing in prepared cocktail olives is usually injected as a slurry at the same time that the stone is ejected; the slurry is subsequently set by immersing the olive in a solution of a calcium salt, which causes rapid gelation by electrostatic cross-linking. [citation needed] A similar process can be used to make "chunks" of everything from cat food through "reformed" ham or fish to "fruit" pieces for pies. It has the E-number 401.
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Fruit is way to healthy. Why not print chocolate. Heating it up a bit should make it flexible enough to extrude and sticky enough to hold and it hardens when it gets cold so structures shouldn't collaps. Plus it would be cheap, easy to buy and reusable.
Old news:
http://www.reprapcentral.com/v... [reprapcentral.com]
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Chocolate comes from cocoa, which is a tree. That makes it a plant. Chocolate is salad.
Therefore, chocolate is also way too healthy.
Finally! (Score:2)
Whole new meaning to "Printer Jam" (Score:2)
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I am so going to 3D-print a radar with this.
unhealthy (Score:1)
I knew a precocious 16 y.o. young girl in a great college, who later married a gourmet chef that made faux foods to delight her taste buds. She died before age 50 with chronic illness that I think reflects modern [lack of] nutrition.
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Printed fruit != fruit (Score:1)
For the naysayers (Score:2)
Look, this may not be the 'best thing since sliced bread' and seem a bit silly, but most technology advances are incremental. Sure, they still have a long way to go, but if you dont get your ass out on the road you will never get there.
That said, sure this is news, but not front page material.
Just what I've always wanted! (Score:2)
Wait, what?
/ Yo dawg, I heard you like fruit...
Sounds more like candy (Score:1)
I'm not even close to being a tree-hugging, organic-loving, Whole Foods-shopping-at hipster, but honestly, don't we already have enough processed frankenfoods? What is wrong with just having some actual raspberries, strawberries, blueberries or whatever kind of berry they're faking? Last I checked, the candy isle at Walmart is already overflowing with sickeningly over-sweetened, artificially flavored fake fruit. They figured out how to print what essentially is Gushers candy [wikipedia.org] with a 3D printer.
"fresh" vs "edible" (Score:2)
I'd love a definition of fresh that doesn't allow for six months of warehousing before I eat it, thank you very much.