Yes, You Will Be Able to Print Food with Your 3-D Printer

Interviewer: "... I know you have the necklace here made from 3D printer, and you have the purse over there. What other things down the road do you think 3D printing can really help with?"

ing: "The area that I'm very excited about is certainly metal to produce materials that are lighter and stronger and more flexible. Ceramic -- anything that you use ceramic to do can all be changed into 3D printing. It's exciting.

"And medical and bioscience, like one of the companies I'm involved with as advisor is printing meat and leather with slaughterhouses. So if one cow can feed an entire nation, we can produce high-quality protein to developing countries without having this unsustainable way of raising cows."

Interviewer: "How does that work? It still sounds like science fiction."

Ping: "Those will take longer. It's already possible today to print ground meat, but it's not quite there yet to print the consistency of steak or chicken or pork. But there are lots of hamburger patties and dumpling fillings, right?...The way it works is it uses stem-cell tissue engineering and in-vitro technology to print the structure of those natural meats and then let it grow. It's very exciting." -- from an interview with Ping Fu, author of Bend, Not Break - A Life in Two Worlds.