TEHRAN, May 29, YJC - Researchers concocted something like edible origami, in the form of flat sheets of gelatin and starch that, when submerged in water, instantly sprouts into three-dimensional structures, including common pasta shapes such as macaroni and rotini.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - "Don't play with your food" is a saying that MIT researchers are
taking with a grain or two of salt. The team is finding ways to make the
dining experience interactive and fun, with food that can transform its
shape when water is added.
The researchers, from MIT's Tangible
Media Group, made edible films that can also be engineered to fold into
the shape of a flower as well as other unconventional configurations.
Playing with the films' culinary potential, the researchers created flat
discs that wrap around beads of caviar, similar to cannoli, as well as
spaghetti that spontaneously divides into smaller noodles when dunked in
hot broth.
The
researchers presented their work in a paper at the Association for
Computing Machinery's 2017 Computer-Human Interaction Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems. They describe their shape-morphing
creations as not only culinary performance art, but also a practical way
to reduce food-shipping costs. For instance, the edible films could be
stacked together and shipped to consumers, then morph into their final
shape later, when immersed in water.
"We
did some simple calculations, such as for macaroni pasta, and even if
you pack it perfectly, you still will end up with 67 percent of the
volume as air," said Wen Wang, a co-author on the paper. "We thought
maybe in the future our shape-changing food could be packed flat and
save space."
Source: Tasnim News Agency