Although the picture looks gross, the idea is prominent in science fiction. I like the concept (if it means creating food out of thin air...not just "printing" food with ingredients) because it can help solve world hunger, and other issues of sustainability.

*"Imagine being able to essentially 'grow', 'cook' or prepare foods without the negative industrial impact - everything from fertilizers to saute pans and even packaging," he says. "The production chain requirements for food would nearly be eliminated."

Local food, could really mean local.

"You can imagine a 3D printer making homemade apple pie without the need for farming the apples, fertilizing, transporting, refrigerating, packaging, fabricating, cooking, serving and the need for all of the materials in these processes like cars, trucks, pans, coolers, etc," he adds.*

Like any recipe, it all depends what you put into it. How it's physically assembled (printer or mixing bowl or whatever) doesn't matter, nutritionally speaking.

Of course I can't imagine a ton of foods that would go well in paste form, but regardless, I wouldn't consider this a good enough example to earn the amusing "neolethal" badge.

Basically just looks like a fancy cookie cutter to me at the present level of technology. It's only as bad as the ingredients put into it... at this point. This part unsettles me, though:

"You can imagine a 3D printer making homemade apple pie without the need for farming the apples..."

This is impossible using the technology they have, which would involve loading apples into the machine, making the idea of making an apple pie "without the need for farming the apples" totally nonsensical unless they plan on loading it with a bunch of artificial crap in order to do this. They don't have the technology to just pull fresh, real apples out of thin air.