Could this new way of manufacturing food be a game changer for plant-based foods and the wider conversation of animal cruelty?
3D printed plant-based meats are a rapidly evolving innovation in the food industry and are sparking debate about their role in the future of food production.
It is already making staggering innovations in the world of plant-based meat alone and could play a pivotal role in the progress of meat alternatives.
The most compelling argument for 3D printed plant-based meats is their potential to drastically reduce animal suffering. By creating meat-like products from plants, these innovations can significantly decrease the demand for animal farming and slaughter.
3D printing technology has already allowed companies to create innovative vegan octopus, steak, eel, and calamari, and there are implications for lab-grown meat too in which no animal slaughter is required.
In this article
In this article, we’ll explore the benefits, concerns, and potential impact of 3D printed meats to find out if they could be the solution to ending animal suffering.
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What is 3D printed food?
3D food printing is understandably a tricky thing to comprehend as it’s such a new technology, and some may even have nightmare visions of spaghetti in tomato sauce coming out of a paper printer.
Thankfully, it’s nothing like that. 3D-printed food is simply a meal created and prepared via an automated additive process.
3D food printing uses edible materials like dough, chocolate, or puréed fruits and vegetables as “ink” to craft food into shapes and designs, loaded into the printer’s nozzle which then crafts the food. It all starts with a digital model loaded into the printer which physically recreates the food design layer by layer.
3D printed foods are made using edible materials like puréed fruit or plant proteins which the printer uses to create foods layer by layer based on a digital model. Photo © mari1408 via Adobe Stock
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The two most prominent methods are called FDM (fused deposition modeling) and Binder Jetting. The former is reminiscent of traditional plastic printing, where materials are melted and precisely extruded.
In Binder Jetting, edible binding agents are used to combine layers of edible powder, such as sugar or chocolate, forming 3D-printed foods. This latter method isn’t food-specific and can be used for non-edible materials like metals and ceramics.
We now find ourselves in 2024 with food printers available to buy, and a selection of restaurants around the world exclusively using food printers in their kitchens. Advocates of the tech even boldly claim that in the near future, every home will have a 3D food printer rustling up grub for its inhabitants.
No matter the method, the 3D printing process is mostly deployed to craft the food, rather than cook it, particularly for complex and intricate designs. For hot dishes, a chef then transfers the food into an oven. There are exceptions: The PancakeBot, for example, crafts pancake designs directly onto a hotplate — the only human intervention needed is someone to flip the pancake.
3D printed vegan seafood
One promising aspect of 3D food printing is that it can create meat alternatives in realistic ways that would be difficult for a human chef to achieve.
It’s difficult to find a more impressive example of a company using this pioneering technology to create plant-based meats than Revo Foods, a Vienna-based plant-based food company who created a highly detailed and ultra-authentic meat alternatives using 3D printing.
To date, the company has crafted a vegan octopus tentacle complete with suckers, and a vegan salmon fillet with the ‘same flakiness’ as fish and a high protein and omega-3 content.
To make its plant-based meats, Revo uses fungi mycoprotein (similar to the main ingredient in Quorn products) due to its ability to imitate both the feel and look of seafood.
By using it proprietary 3D-MassFormer extrusion technology which allows for the “seamless integration of fats into a fibrous protein matrix”, the ingredient can be transformed into realistic meat alternatives with no animal cruelty.
Encouragingly, as well as looking and tasting the part, Revo Food’s products have achieved a Nutriscore A nutritional profile as mycoprotein is a good source of fibre, protein, and is low in fat and cholesterol.
This is a vital development as processed vegan products are often lambasted for being unhealthy, a criticism that has led to their popularity waning in recent years.
By creating healthy, lifelike alternatives that are almost indistinguishable from their animal-based counterparts, these products become more appealing to consumers looking to cut their meat consumption.
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Made from mycoprotein, the tentacles can be grilled, fried, or baked to create octopus-based dishes such as Pulpo a la Gallega, Takoyaki, or octopus salads. Photo © Revo Foods
Another veganised meat alternative that has raised eyebrows is 3D printed plant-based eel, created by Steakholder Foods, which is being touted as a groundbreaking solution to combat the challenges faced by the fishing industry.
With overfishing threatening the extinction of many eel species globally, the company aims to offer a sustainable alternative for markets where eel is commonly consumed such as Japan where roughly a hundred thousand tons of eel (around 70% of the global total) are eaten annually.
In a world where the consumption of eels has declined due to factors like overfishing, poaching, and breeding difficulties, Steakholder Foods’ innovative approach provides consumers with a viable, animal-friendly alternative.
By addressing the challenges associated with the declining eel populations, the company’s 3D-printed vegan eel represents a pivotal moment in the seafood sector, offering a more sustainable and ethical option. Photo © Steakholder Foods
But the innovations in the vegan seafood sector don’t end there as scientists at the National University of Singapore are also utilising 3D printing to successfully create plant-based calamari with a highly accurate ‘flakiness and mouth feel of real fish’ and ‘fishy’ taste.
What’s even more exciting is they have also recreated the nutritional profile of calamari, minus the negatives associated with seafood including chemical and heavy metal poisoning, and microplastics, that’s more sustainable and entirely animal-free.
According to the principal investigator of the research, Dejian Huang, Ph.D., “We wanted to make protein-based products that are nutritionally equivalent to or better than real seafood and address food sustainability.”
With scientists predicting we could see fishless oceans as early as 20481, proponents hope adoption of 3D printed vegan seafood could gradually ease the existential problem of overfishing and ocean dead zones.
By embracing this cutting-edge technology, we can work towards healthier oceans and a more sustainable food future.
3D printed vegan seafood such as Revo Foods' salmon could gradually ease the existential problem of overfishing and ocean dead zones by offering consumers a delicious, sustainable alternative. Photo © Revo Foods
3D printed vegan steak
Seafood isn’t the only area that’s seen significant innovation thanks to the burgeoning field of 3D technology – vegan steaks closely mimic the taste, texture, and appearance of traditional beef steaks are now possible too.
There are several pioneering companies leveraging the technology to produce meat alternatives that look and taste so realistic it’s hard to tell they’re not meat.
Most notable is Redefine Meat which is utilising the technology to combine plant proteins, fats, and natural flavours to replicate the muscle structure of beef, resulting in a product that can be grilled, seared, and cooked just like a traditional steak.
By creating a product that closely replicates the sensory experience of animal meat, the company’s CTO, Daniel Dikovsky says the product has the potential to cater to a broader consumer base beyond vegans.
While many are skeptical of the quality of 3D printed meats, Redefine Meat’s steak has even got the stamp of approval from celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, who serves it several of his restaurants across the country.
The steak is also on the menu of Unity Diner, vegan activist Earthling Ed’s non-profit vegan restaurant which donates money to its associated farmed animal sanctuary, Surge Sanctuary.
In order to get flexitarians and meat-eaters on board with eating plant-based meats, they need to be as realistic as possible - something 3D printing can help achieve. Photo © Redefine Meat
Novameat is another innovator in the 3D printed meat space hoping to address the environmental and ethical concerns associated with livestock farming while providing a viable alternative for meat enthusiasts.
The Spanish company utilises a unique micro-extrusion technology to create plant-based steaks that replicate the fibrous structure of animal meat. By layering plant-based ingredients such as pea protein, seaweed, and beet juice, Novameat produces steaks that offer a similar taste and mouthfeel to traditional beef.
But the company hasn’t stopped its experimentation there as it also offers plant-based alternatives to chicken, beef, and turkey that are available in different cuts to suit personal taste. Furthermore, the company is also working to develop alternatives to beef steak and pork tenderloin, along with a range of other cuts.
Spanish company Novameat is using unique micro-extrusion technology to create cuts of vegan meats ranging from beef to turkey. Photo © Novameat
3D food-printing and lab-grown meat
Besides boosting vegan meat alternatives by recreating meat with highly sophisticated and detailed plant-based versions, there is another way in which 3D food printing could play a pivotal role in the reduction of animal suffering and the huge global carbon emissions associated with animal agriculture: cultured meat, also known as lab-grown meat.
3D food printing can also create meat, provided it works with the raw cells of an animal. That is to say, you can’t give a food-printing machine a cow and expect it to slaughter it.
Instead, 3D printing could be at the forefront of cultured meat, in which meat is grown from an animal’s cell scrapings — no animal need be killed in this process, and there is certainly no need for slaughterhouses to create cultured meat, as we know on the enormous, mass scale globally today.
As with the vegan versions above, this process also sees the technology creating dishes using a nozzle, in this case the lab-grown stem cells are made into a bio-ink which the 3D printer nozzle uses to construct the dish. And then a dish of cultured chicken, beef, lamb, as examples, is created. If adopted by meat-eaters en masse, the implications for reducing animal slaughter and carbon emissions are potentially profound.
3D printing can also create meat using the raw cells of an animal which would have a profound impact on the reduction of animal slaughter and carbon emissions if it become normalised among meat-eaters. Photo © visoot via Adobe Stock
Are 3D printed foods ‘Frankenfoods’?
When it comes to acceptance of 3D printed foods, perspectives often fall into two broad categories: concerns over them being “Frankenfoods” and optimism about their potential to end animal suffering.
Whether 3D printed plant-based meats are “Frankenfoods” or a solution to ending animal suffering largely depends on your perspective and values.
From a technological and ethical standpoint, these innovations offer promising benefits for animal welfare and the sustainability of the planet’s food systems. However, they also raise valid concerns about health, naturalness, and economic impact.
From an environmental perspective, these innovations could significantly reduce the ecological footprint of food production by curbing overfishing, mitigating ocean dead zones, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions associated with traditional livestock farming.
Ethically, the reduction in animal suffering through decreased demand for animal farming and slaughter offers a compelling argument for their adoption.
Health concerns, such as the nutritional profile and potential risks of highly processed foods, remain a valid consideration, but advancements like those from Revo Foods show promising strides towards creating healthier alternatives.
Ultimately, while some may view 3D printed meats as “Frankenfoods,” their potential to contribute to a more humane and sustainable food system suggests they might indeed be part of the answer to ending animal suffering and addressing environmental challenges.
Prefer wholefoods to plant-based meats? Then you’ll love these delicious vegan mushroom recipes.
Featured photo © 18042011 via Adobe Stock, composition by VFL
