Food printers work just like the non-culinary 3-D printers already on the market: Choose the design for an object (say, an iPhone case, or a bracelet) on your computer, hit “print”, and the machine creates the object by layering a raw material (currently, plastic) into thin coats. 3-D printing recently made news by spitting out working handguns and a prosthetic human ear (thankfully unrelated). Next up…pizza. (See “3-D Printers Are Saving Lives and Serving Pizzas.”)

Sounds like something out of Star Trek? The field heated up when NASA got in the game last year, granting $125,000 to create a food printer for long-term space missions. The contractor is developing moisture-free cartridges filled with nutritionally balanced powders which, when inserted into