The last word in the headline is not a typo for prepared. As weird as it sounds, printing may be the way to go with steak and other food prep, according to a report at Memphis CBS affiliate WREG.
The process involves using a 3-D printer and edible “ink.” The result is a steak made out of vegetable protein, which means it’s not only not a steak but fits into a vegan diet. Here’s a video of a “steak” being printed and cooked. Looks yummy, no?
This is a 3D-printed vegan steak. It takes about 10 minutes to print, two minutes to cook, and its inventor hopes the steak can take the place of beef steak because the vegan version is better for the environment. Would you give it a try? pic.twitter.com/yp9MIHTn5I
— WREG News Channel 3 (@3onyourside) March 1, 2019
Remarkably, this is not the first 3-D printed steak. According to Dezeen, in late 2018, Italian bioengineer Giuseppe independently came up with the technology for printing a meat-free steak, which reportedly “mimics the texture of beef.”
Vegan ingredients such as rice, peas and seaweed, which provide the amino acids needed for a healthy diet, are turned into a food paste that is 3D-printed to form a raw, steak-like substance.
Despite an abundance of meat-free products already on the market that taste similar to animal meats, Scionti found that these are limited to imitation burgers, chicken nuggets or meatballs. None of the offerings reproduce a piece of “fibrous flesh” such as steak or chicken breast.
Tempting as this all sounds, I can’t imagine that Ben & Jack’s or any of the other classic New York steak emporia are in fear of the competition or will be trading in their slabs of red meat for a 3-D printer.
