There’s a new frontier in 3D printing that’s beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn’t stopping there.
3D打印领域正在出现一个新的前沿：食品。最近的发展使得能够打印、烹饪和大规模服务食品的机器成为可能。而且这个行业并没有止步于此。

Food production
食品生产

With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that — it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to “re-create forms and pieces” of food that are “exactly the same,” freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.
使用3D打印机，厨师可以打印复杂的巧克力雕塑和婚礼蛋糕上的美丽装饰。并不是每个人都能做到这一点——这需要多年的经验，但打印机让这一切变得简单。西班牙的一家餐厅使用Foodini来“重新创造食品的形状和部分”，这些食品“完全相同”，让厨师们有更多时间完成其他任务。在另一家餐厅，它所提供的所有菜肴和甜点都是3D打印的，而不是从农场到餐桌。

Sustainability(可持续性)
可持续性

The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids (水解胶体) from plentiful renewables like algae(藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients(烹饪原料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock “food” that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.
预计到2050年，全球人口将增长到96亿，一些分析师估计，为了维持当前水平，食品生产需要增加50%。可持续性正成为必要。3D食品打印可能有助于解决方案。一些专家认为，打印机可以使用来自丰富可再生资源如藻类和草的羟基胶体来替代熟悉的烹饪原料。3D打印可以减少燃料使用和排放。未来的杂货店可能会储备可以持续多年不变质的“食品”，从而节省货架空间并减少运输和储存需求。

Nutrition
营养

Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, “Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday’s bread from the supermarket, you’d eat something baked just for you on demand.”
未来的3D食品打印机可以使加工食品更健康。哥伦比亚大学的教授Hod Lipson说：“食品打印可以让消费者打印具有定制营养内容的食品，比如维生素。所以你不再吃超市里昨天的面包，而是根据你的需求即时烘焙食品。”

Challenges
挑战

Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste(糊状物) before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.
尽管3D食品打印最近取得了进步，但这个行业仍有许多挑战需要克服。目前，大多数原料在使用打印机之前必须被改变成糊状物，而且打印过程相当耗时，因为原料之间以非常复杂的方式相互作用。此外，大多数3D食品打印机目前仅限于干性原料，因为肉类和乳制品很容易变质。一些专家对3D食品打印机持怀疑态度，认为它们更适合快餐店而不是家庭和高端餐厅。

1. What benefit does 3D printing bring to food production?
   A. It helps cooks to create new dishes.
   B. It saves time and effort in cooking.
   C. It improves the cooking conditions.
   D. It contributes to restaurant decorations.
   答案：B

2. What can we learn about 3D food printing from Paragraphs 3?
   A. It solves food shortages easily.
   B. It quickens the transportation of food.
   C. It needs no space for the storage of food.
   D. It uses renewable materials as sources of food.
   答案：D

3. According to Paragraph 4, 3D-printed food _.
   A. is more available to consumers
   B. can meet individual nutritional needs
   C. is more tasty than food in supermarkets
   D. can keep all the nutrition in raw materials
   答案：B

4. What is the main factor that prevents 3D food printing from spreading widely?
   A. The printing process is complicated.
   B. 3D food printers are too expensive.
   C. Food materials have to be dry.
   D. Some experts doubt 3D food printing.
   答案：C

5. What could be the best title of the passage?
   A. 3D Food Printing: Delicious New Technology
   B. A New Way to Improve 3D Food Printing
   C. The Challenges for 3D Food Production
   D. 3D Food Printing: From Farm to Table
   答案：A