【推荐1】There’s a new frontier in 3D printing that’s beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn’t stopping there.

Food production

With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that -- it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to “re-create forms and pieces” of food that are “exactly the same,”, freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.

Sustainability（可持续性）

The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydro-colloids（水解胶体）from plentiful renewable like algae（藻类）and grass to replace the familiar ingredients. 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock “food” that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.

Nutrition

Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, “Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday’s bread from the supermarket, you’d eat something baked just for you on demand.”

Challenges

Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.

How are you these days? The Eighth Student Art Festival starts in our middle school. Today is the first day. There is a photo show(展览). Students take many photos. All of them are great. I love one of the photos very much. It is a photo of a big family. It’s named(命名) “Happy Birthday, Grandma!” I think this student must have a happy family, just like us. In the next two weeks, we have other fun things— the talent(才艺) show, the Chinese painting show and the DIY show. The talent show is on the afternoon of December 19th. My classmate David and I will play the piano. Our parents will come and watch the show. I hope we can do well. Do you have time? Please come and watch our show. And ask Cindy to come with you. I miss(思念) her very much.

Yours,

Tina