Archana Mahapatra, Priyanka Sakare and Saroj K Giri

Every so often, an invention reshapes not only the way we eat our food but the way we understand food itself. Fire brought us cooking, refrigeration gave us preservation, and today, 3D food printing is opening the door to meals crafted with unprecedented precision.

Let us imagine a kitchen countertop where a compact printer extrudes all our favourite items like chocolate, cheese, or vegetable puree layer by layer into intricate edible shapes customised in texture, nutrition, and aesthetics, instead of cooking, baking, or frying the food. What once seemed like science fiction is now an active field of research across food technology, materials science, and digital engineering, so, yes! Even the food has not remained untouched by digital. 3D food printing or additive manufacturing of food combines the principles of mechanical design, properties of ingredients, and end products, for example, rheology, texture, and nutrition science, to produce foods that are not only appealing to the eyes but also sustainable and personalised...read more on NOPR