{"id":8819,"date":"2017-05-15T16:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T15:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/?p=8819"},"modified":"2025-02-16T14:54:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T14:54:02","slug":"5-ways-technology-improves-eating","status":"publish","type":[],"link":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/5-ways-technology-improves-eating\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways Technology is Improving Our Eating Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"
Throughout our lives, innovations in food-related technology have always seemed to be something that has taken a bit of a back burner.\n
Communication, storage, vehicles, construction, and numerous other fields always seem to have the big breaks, the new gadgets, and gizmos that everyone rushes for, and they seem to then get combined where possible with our same-old kitchen gadgets; smart fridges, cookers, or microwaves, etc.\n Here we\u2019re going to look at some ideas that are actually new innovations in food technology.\n They seem to focus, as everything does, on lowering calories, cutting time, knowing what\u2019s in our food and how I can possibly use it with my phone.\n So without further ado, let\u2019s begin.\n Lynne Kucsma, co-founder of Natural Machines, the maker of Foodini, the 3D printer mentioned later has explained the major positive of 3D printing food “You might ask, why would you want to print that? You can get that in the supermarket.”\n The point of the technology is to help lower the hidden ingredients of food; the preservatives, salt, and oil, all found in packaged food.\n The idea of 3D printed food doesn\u2019t exactly get you salivating but eventually, it\u2019ll be a vital tool in numerous culinary areas including space travel!\n The Foodini is a perfect example of the everyday possibilities for the home kitchen.\n The user blends the ingredients and the printer can print the desired shape including burgers, pizza, and desserts although currently, it doesn\u2019t take all the labor out of making a meal, plans are in place so that the device will cook the food as well.\n Large organizations are even seeing the potential; Hershey’s for example has started exhibiting the CocoJet 3D printer to print intricate chocolate designs through the use of an iPad.\n The printers are even helping to reduce carbon emissions and save animals by producing essentially meatless meat, this can, of course, be a significant use for the technology, Modern Meadow is already utilizing this idea.\n NASA is trialing the use of 3D printers to make meals for astronauts in space including a pizza.\n When you pair scent with food and food experiences it becomes an interesting concept.\n In regard to food, around 80% of so-called taste actually smells, so from this, we can obviously see replicating the smell will have great benefits to replicating the taste without the actual consumption of the product.\n This idea will be vital when it comes to dieting, spraying scents, or playing sounds whilst eating low-calorie or blander foods have been proven to improve taste and quality which of course transforms the food and makes up for the drastically lower taste.\n Oscar Mayer has even cottoned on to the potential, the “wake up and smell the bacon” campaign combines a dongle that plugs into the iPhone\u2019s headphone jack and an app to emit the smell of cooking Bacon when your alarm goes off.\n Waiting for your meal can ruin an entire evening, even waiting for the order to be taken can be bad, especially when they’re busy, so the chance of potentially wiping this out sounds nothing but great in my opinion, and apparently many people agree.\n Robotic waiters are being used across the world as an alternative to the conventional human counterparts.\n In one China-based restaurant in Harbin province, dishes are prepared by robot chefs and delivered to the table by robotic waiters.\n Although actual robots seem a wonderful idea, even something as simple as a tablet is being used to great effect.\n The restaurant chain Applebee\u2019s has rolled out 100,000 Presto tablets, powered by Intel, across their restaurants to drastically lower ordering times, food delivery, and paying their bill.\n Whether it\u2019s for ordering food online, finding out recipes or learning what\u2019s actually in our food, apps are undeniably affecting the way we eat.\n So many big restaurants have apps that allow you to order your takeaway and have it delivered without having to make a call including Domino\u2019s and apps like Grab & Uber.\n More in-depth apps are getting to grips with every day food consumption.\n Some apps are using image recognition software so users can snap their meal and then the app identifies the food, the weight and calorific value.\n Obviously this technology is limited to shapes and colors and lower calorie or vegetarian alternatives may not be detected.\n Companies like Consumer Physics are working on a more high-tech way of identifying food.\n They\u2019ve created a food scanner called SCiO that uses near-IR spectrometry.\n The SCiO directs a near-IR beam at food which bounces back, is then analyzed to work out the foods make-up and displays the nutritional details on an app.\n Each group in the food molecules (like water and sugar) absorbs different parts, to differing extents, of the near-IR spectrum which is how the app determines the content of the food.\n3D Printing Food\n
Food Scents & Mobile Plug-ins\n
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Robotic Staff in Restaurants\n
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Apps and Infrared (IR)\n
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Virtual Reality Combines with Food Science\n
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