According to an article recently published in the journal Food Science, a team of scientists from Columbia University has designed a robot that can 3D print and cook food with laser beams. According to the researchers, the lasers provided good cooking and heating accuracy. Scientists claim that this robot chef will have an important function in preparing 3D-printed dishes that are not suitable for traditional cooking methods.
There are two different cooking methods in Robot Chef: blue rays and infrared rays. Blue lasers are better at cooking the product directly, while infrared lasers are better at cooking the product covered with a package. Thanks to infrared rays, it is thought that cooking the products after packaging will extend the shelf life of the product, and it will also provide a commercial benefit. The robot chef allows the product to be pressed and cooked with many different options, from low to medium, to well done.
Artificial meat was produced using a 3D printer before, and a lot of work has been done on this subject in recent years. But don’t confuse this project with the others, because in this project, Columbia researchers bought chicken from the grocery store, pureed it and uploaded it to a 3D printer. Unlike traditional methods, he cooked it with laser beams.
If you ask how it tastes:
Continuing the study, the scientists tried the robot-cooked chicken meat and traditionally-cooked chicken meat together for the taste test. The majority preferred laser-cooked chicken meat to traditionally-cooked chicken. However, one of the tasters said that the product has a smell similar to the sharp smell of the laser used when filling dentists, independent of chicken.
Researchers stated that they aim to improve cooking techniques by using more laser wavelengths in the robot whose prototype is presented. He also stated that not only chicken meat but also many other food products can be cooked with the robot.