Can we 3D print fake meat that doesn't give us the ick?

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

About a third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from our food systems.

Livestock production is a big part of that.

Experts largely agree that one of the biggest actions individuals can take to lower emissions

is to eat less meat.

But that's a hard sell for a lot of consumers. Americans have

been eating more meat in recent years, and sales of plant-based meat alternatives have dropped.

There are a lot of companies out there trying to innovate climate-friendly meat and alternatives

for the future. For our podcast, How We Survive,

Marketplaces Amy Scott visits a lab at Columbia University, where researchers are figuring out how

to make a more convincing and enjoyable fake meat. Here's Amy. Deep in the halls of the engineering school

at Columbia University is the Creative Machines Lab.

It looks a bit like the prop room for a sci-fi movie, full of robot heads and spidery bodies.

All the stuff you see on the shelves are other projects from past PhD students.

In a corner of the lab, former student Jonathan Blutinger, who's now an adjunct professor,

shows me a machine he and a team developed, a 3D printer that prepares and cooks food.

It's got a magnetized claw that can pick up different tubes of ingredients and print them in layers through a nozzle

onto a plate. And then it can also cook using one of two different lasers, which are on the

side of this toolhead. Does it have a name? I don't have a name for this. This is version five.

That's what I call it. Boring. We'll be right back.

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