Army Eyes 3-D Printed Food for Soldiers

[ImCoolBeans]

Army scientists have spent decades concocting meals that last without refrigeration and survive high-altitude airdrops. And now, the Army is eyeing a new form of cooking: 3-D printing! Yes, food that comes fresh out of a printer, for our troops.

Lauren Oleksyk, a food technologist leading the team at the Army's Natick research center, lays out the vision.

Imagine soldiers who are strapped, head to toe, with sensors that measure if they're high or low in potassium or cholesterol.

"We envision to have a 3-D printer that is interfaced with the soldier. And that sensor can deliver information to the computer software," Oleksyk says. "And then they would be able to have either powdered or liquid matrices that are very nutrient dense, that they have on demand that they can take and eat immediately to fill that need."

"Liquid matrices" that are nutrient "dense." And you print them?!

You read that right.

You can read the rest of the article here (http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/11/04/361187352/army-eyes-3d-printed-food-for-soldiers), at NPR.

Pretty interesting, I don't know how I feel about that though. I don't really have a desire to eat 3D printed food.

[Captain Canada]

Interesting idea but I don't see anyway it can work. And if I was in the army, I wouldn't be interested in eating printed food

[Typhlosion]

Guys, when you're in combat the last you thing will be is picky.

I found the interface more interesting.

[CosmicNoodle]

Completely unneeded, expensive, likely to break or simply be slow and in effective. Personally I quite like MRE's (Yes, I'm one of the two people on earth who like them), there and army surplus shot in town that sells them and I often buy then for college lunch of I'm running low on cash because they cost like £1.50 in the store. Anyway.

(that article was idiot proof, small words, and overly simplified, I don't think I'll be going to NPR for my news, it was catering to the lowest common denominator)

[SethfromMI]

Completely unneeded, expensive, likely to break or simply be slow and in effective. Personally I quite like MRE's (Yes, I'm one of the two people on earth who like them), there and army surplus shot in town that sells them and I often buy then for college lunch of I'm running low on cash because they cost like £1.50 in the store. Anyway.

(that article was idiot proof, small words, and overly simplified, I don't think I'll be going to NPR for my news, it was catering to the lowest common denominator)

I have had some MRE's before, some of them can actually taste good.

as far as the printing thing, I am a little skpetical they could get it to work, but who knows