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50 years ago marketers and pundits predicted that today everybody would be eating what was, back then, "astronaut food": pills with nutrients and/or lyophilized

50 years ago marketers and pundits predicted that today everybody would be eating what was, back then, "astronaut food": pills with nutrients and/or lyophilized (freeze-dried) food. Today the strongest marketing trends in food are fresh, organic, local and seasonal. No, 3d will not make a food revolution.

Zikes 11y ago
"High end dining", as in food that is deliberately overcomplicated and ridiculously high priced. This article has nothing to do with the average dinner table.
- photoJ 11y ago
  And ridiculously delicious!
BurningFrog 11y ago
Since prediction A was wrong, logically, prediction B must also be wrong.
- vacri 11y ago
  Well, first, it's an opinion, not a mathematical proof. And secondly, just because you can't see the link between the two doesn't mean there's no link. Perhaps put it this way: 50 years ago, some people thought that highly processed foods were the quality food of the future. Over time it became apparent that quality food was considered to be 'back-to-basics', original and fresh stuff. Now there is a new trend of highly processing food that some think will be the quality food of the future. Of course 3D printing food won't be anything more than a toy. It requires expensive equipment with a lot of maintenance, specific training, and can only be used with a limited subsection of foods (basically anything you can put into a piping bag, which also has to be stiff enough to support it's own weight). The idea of this spreading to the massed public is just ludicrous; who is going to be making the family dinner with a 3D printer? And keep on doing that regularly, once the novelty wears off? A toy for high-end restaurants does not a food revolution make.
majewsky 11y ago
The closest to this astronaut food that we actually have (albeit not at large scale yet) is probably Soylent.
- bbatha 11y ago
  The closest is really backpacking food that you can find at your local outdoor store. You can get freeze dried versions of pretty much whatever you want. The military also produces meals ready to eat (MREs) which are fairly easy for civilians to procure. Radiation is used to kill every living thing in MREs so the food can be shipped with most of its water content in it and still lasts for decades. MREs are incredibly nutritionally dense, though the lack in the flavor department. But I bet the lack of flavor is because their made by the lowest bidder for the military and not because of a technical restriction. If you just want a meal in a can, there are dozens of brands of meal replacement shakes you can get at your local grocery store.
  - photoJ 11y ago
    Thank you for this. The Soylet emperor wears no clothes.
  - chiph 11y ago
    Today's MREs are far far better than the ones I ate back in the 80's. People complain about the taste, but until you've eaten the "Dried pork pattie" (which resembled a desiccated cow flop), you haven't had a truly bad MRE. The complaints of blandness are probably because they have to be eaten by a wide variety of military members, and having something high on the Scoville Scale would be a problem (although .. the tiny bottles of Tabasco are highly prized). The same meals also end up in non-military branded packaging being given to refugees, and often their stomachs can't handle anything spicy in the slightest after what they've been through.
burke 11y ago
There's an important distinction between these two predictions which this comparison belies: * "astronaut food" completely sacrifices the art and enjoyment of food for efficiency. * 3D printing is a way to explore methods of increasing art and enjoyment of food (certainly not efficiency). The complete absence of "astronaut food" in daily life, with the exception of Soylent/Ensure for a small minority, is I think indicative of two things: 1. We still don't really know what optimal nutrition is, so "try to eat lots of green things" is generally viewed as optimal. People rightfully don't trust anyone to decide what's optimal and codify it as a single food. 2. People don't even want to eat optimally, they want to enjoy eating. Astronaut food does not deliver on this. 3D printing does not attempt to provide optimal nutrition, but explores avenues to increase enjoyment of food. "Revolution", maybe not, but these two prediction are 100% orthogonal IMO.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Mashed potato is still mashed potato, even if it was piped out of a tube. It's difficult to imagine how piped mash will result in a substantial increase in the enjoyment of my food. I would think that the food may even need to compromised in texture, and perhaps flavor, in order to accommodate the piping mechanism.
  - burke 11y ago
    Yeah, we'll see. I suspect there are chefs with more imaginative uses of this than you or I have. All I'm saying is you can't rule it out for the same reason as nutrient pills.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - photoJ 11y ago
    Never had potato foam then I assume? ie: http://theforkchicago.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/in-the-time-i-have-been-away-from-the-blog-i-have-been-devoting-all-of-my-time-to-studying-my-craft-i-have-been-working-full.html http://theforkchicago.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/in-the-time-i...
o_____________o 11y ago
NON SEQUITUR Claim A is made. Evidence is presented for Claim A. Therefore, claim C is true. http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/137-non-sequitur http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallaci...

Zikes 11y ago

"High end dining", as in food that is deliberately overcomplicated and ridiculously high priced. This article has nothing to do with the average dinner table.

photoJ 11y ago
And ridiculously delicious!

BurningFrog 11y ago

Since prediction A was wrong, logically, prediction B must also be wrong.

vacri 11y ago
Well, first, it's an opinion, not a mathematical proof. And secondly, just because you can't see the link between the two doesn't mean there's no link. Perhaps put it this way: 50 years ago, some people thought that highly processed foods were the quality food of the future. Over time it became apparent that quality food was considered to be 'back-to-basics', original and fresh stuff. Now there is a new trend of highly processing food that some think will be the quality food of the future. Of course 3D printing food won't be anything more than a toy. It requires expensive equipment with a lot of maintenance, specific training, and can only be used with a limited subsection of foods (basically anything you can put into a piping bag, which also has to be stiff enough to support it's own weight). The idea of this spreading to the massed public is just ludicrous; who is going to be making the family dinner with a 3D printer? And keep on doing that regularly, once the novelty wears off? A toy for high-end restaurants does not a food revolution make.

majewsky 11y ago

The closest to this astronaut food that we actually have (albeit not at large scale yet) is probably Soylent.

bbatha 11y ago
The closest is really backpacking food that you can find at your local outdoor store. You can get freeze dried versions of pretty much whatever you want. The military also produces meals ready to eat (MREs) which are fairly easy for civilians to procure. Radiation is used to kill every living thing in MREs so the food can be shipped with most of its water content in it and still lasts for decades. MREs are incredibly nutritionally dense, though the lack in the flavor department. But I bet the lack of flavor is because their made by the lowest bidder for the military and not because of a technical restriction. If you just want a meal in a can, there are dozens of brands of meal replacement shakes you can get at your local grocery store.
- photoJ 11y ago
  Thank you for this. The Soylet emperor wears no clothes.
- chiph 11y ago
  Today's MREs are far far better than the ones I ate back in the 80's. People complain about the taste, but until you've eaten the "Dried pork pattie" (which resembled a desiccated cow flop), you haven't had a truly bad MRE. The complaints of blandness are probably because they have to be eaten by a wide variety of military members, and having something high on the Scoville Scale would be a problem (although .. the tiny bottles of Tabasco are highly prized). The same meals also end up in non-military branded packaging being given to refugees, and often their stomachs can't handle anything spicy in the slightest after what they've been through.

burke 11y ago

There's an important distinction between these two predictions which this comparison belies: * "astronaut food" completely sacrifices the art and enjoyment of food for efficiency. * 3D printing is a way to explore methods of increasing art and enjoyment of food (certainly not efficiency). The complete absence of "astronaut food" in daily life, with the exception of Soylent/Ensure for a small minority, is I think indicative of two things: 1. We still don't really know what optimal nutrition is, so "try to eat lots of green things" is generally viewed as optimal. People rightfully don't trust anyone to decide what's optimal and codify it as a single food. 2. People don't even want to eat optimally, they want to enjoy eating. Astronaut food does not deliver on this. 3D printing does not attempt to provide optimal nutrition, but explores avenues to increase enjoyment of food. "Revolution", maybe not, but these two prediction are 100% orthogonal IMO.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Mashed potato is still mashed potato, even if it was piped out of a tube. It's difficult to imagine how piped mash will result in a substantial increase in the enjoyment of my food. I would think that the food may even need to compromised in texture, and perhaps flavor, in order to accommodate the piping mechanism.
- burke 11y ago
  Yeah, we'll see. I suspect there are chefs with more imaginative uses of this than you or I have. All I'm saying is you can't rule it out for the same reason as nutrient pills.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- photoJ 11y ago
  Never had potato foam then I assume? ie: http://theforkchicago.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/in-the-time-i-have-been-away-from-the-blog-i-have-been-devoting-all-of-my-time-to-studying-my-craft-i-have-been-working-full.html http://theforkchicago.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/in-the-time-i...

o_____________o 11y ago

NON SEQUITUR Claim A is made. Evidence is presented for Claim A. Therefore, claim C is true. http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/137-non-sequitur http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallaci...