Even the most amateur environmentalist can tell you that meat and livestock production takes a serious toll on the planet. A one-pound hamburger, for example, requires more than 200 gallons of water and 300 square feet of grazing for the unlucky cow, according to a study in the Journal of Animal Science.

Enter 3-D printing, the old technique that’s recently gotten lots of buzz for its application to manufacturing, medicine, and now, food. The basic idea behind 3-D printing is that with the right core ingredients, you can literally produce anything. Isolating those ingredients down to a molecular level means that they can be melded and organized at will, essentially stacked in layers until you have, voila, a homemade steak.

I’m exaggerating a