it aids in mass customization and personalization of foods. Apart from nutritional benefits, each of these constituents significantly contributes to food structures and textures that impart palatability and mouthfeel. Thus, 3D food printing remains to be a single solution for multiple constraints.
3.3 Panorama of Food Printing
As a digitally controlled robotic process, food 3D printing dealt with the sustainable approaches in food manufacturing that would transform the traditional food supply chain. It allows for customized designing of foods, development of prototype models for educating the pre‐school children, personalization of diets by imparting new textures, and taste suitable for people of different age groups (Godoi et al. 2019; Perez et al. 2019). Conventional food production involves the development of limited products with internal designs that restricts the cost. While 3D printing of foods helps in the mass production of designed foods that integrates the artistic skills of culinary professionals without a hike in the cost of production. Being a rapid prototyping tool, food printing paves a way for delivering nutrients in fascinating shapes. In contrast to conventional processing techniques, food printing requires a considerable amount of pre‐processing in order to tailor its physicochemical properties thereby making it suitable for layer‐by‐layer fabrication. Studies were reported on the delivery of fruits and vegetables in attractive shapes thus making the kids consume nutritious food (Severini et al. 2018). It aids in changing the consumer’s mindset that transforms their dislikeness towards a product into likeness. Further food printing helps in cutting down the calorie intake with less fat, less sugar, and less salt and leads to the fabrication of customized patterned food in layers (Prakash et al. 2019). Microstructural designing of food is also possible with the development of printing technology as 3D printing could be used for modifying the fill density of a product that gives a distinct mouthfeel. This micro‐scale printing also helps to incorporate food bioactive compounds into the 3D printed products. Further 3D printing helps to deliver texture modified foods for people with swallowing disorders. All these potential advantages of food printing would lead to the development of a convenient food product that holds a huge market value. Post‐processing of printed foods will add upon taste and contributes to structural integrity to retain its shape. Thus, it is essential to understand the role of each constituent in printability and the response of 3D structures when subjecting to post‐processing treatments. The structural chemistry of food constituents towards 3D printing is discussed in the subsequent sections.
3.4 Insights on the Printability of Different Food Constituents
3.4.1 Carbohydrates and Starch
Carbohydrates are chemical organic compounds comprised of simple sugars and polysaccharides (starch and non‐starch). The latter group of carbohydrates takes more time to get digested than simple sugars and are referred to as dietary carbohydrates. The concept of well‐being and healthy food provokes the fascination towards fibre‐rich diet possessing a low glycaemic response (Amicucci et al. 2019). The digestible polysaccharide, starch comprises of linear amylose and non‐linear amylopectin fractions. These are homopolymers made of glucosidic bonds forming the backbone of starch molecules. Non‐starch polysaccharides are grouped as cellulosic and non‐cellulosic (pectin and hemicellulose) that forms the major part of the plant cells. The polymeric network of polysaccharides and their physicochemical characteristics makes them more suitable for food printing. Most of the 3D printing works reported in the literature were carried out with starch‐based food materials in assessing its behaviour towards printability. On comparing with the other food constituents, carbohydrate‐based printing material supplies possess more tendency of gelation that tailors the consistency and material flowability and hence the layered deposition of 3D constructs (Figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1 Schematic representation of gelation mechanism of starch granules.
Researchers are quite interested in exploring the printability of common daily foods such as cereals and millets, legumes and pulses, fruits and vegetables, dairy products and meat products. Rice a staple food of South Asia is widely consumed and forms a major part of the regular diet (Ramadoss et al. 2019). Huang et al. (2019) have reported a study on the assessment of printability of brown rice and evaluated its effect on end‐product quality. In this study, ready-to-cook (RTC) brown rice flour was prepared and used for printing trials. Material supply was pre‐gelatinised in order to enhance the chemical integrity of starch molecules. Granule size, amylose, and amylopectin content of flour determined its pasting behaviour (Huang et al. 2019). This could be correlated with the swelling power and gelling behaviour of starch molecules. The formation of hydrogen bonds and corresponding molecular entanglement had a significant impact on textural properties such as the hardness and gumminess of the 3D printed sample.
In another study, mashed potato along with potato starch (0, 1, 2, and 4%, w/w) was used for 3D printing. Raw potatoes were steam cooked and ground to form smooth paste making them suitable for extrusion‐based printing. Application of heat causes the molecules to swell due to which the amorphous nature of the starch molecules was increased with a decrease in their crystallinity. Upon subsequent cooling, the starch mixture would reverse the process to regain its crystalline nature that leads to the formation of a gel. The strong association of hydrogen bonds between water and starch forms a dense network imparting a smooth texture for material supply making it easy for extrudability and hence 3D printing of starch‐based food mixtures (Liu et al. 2018).
Southerland et al. (2011) reported a study on printing a mixture of starch, sugar, and mashed potato as dry fractions using a Z Corporation 3D printer to fabricate teeth like prototypes based on sugar crystals. These type of 3D printers employs a heat source for binding and fusion of materials based on sintering process thereby forming a 3D edible construct. Sintering is a solid‐state process involving the melting of solid particles to their melting point that leads to the formation of grain boundaries between grain‐void interfaces (Figure 3.2). In the case of sugar crystals, the molecular voids open out forming the fusion of particles together with the application of heat and slight pressure. 3D printing of sugars greatly depends on properties like crystallinity, melting point, source and extent of heating, glass transition temperature (T g), compressibility, solubility, and material density. These parameters greatly influence the porosity of fabricated structures and hence the texture of 3D printed candies could be controlled. Similarly, 3D systems had fabricated sugar cubes from milk chocolates, sweet, and sour candies (Sun et al. 2015).
Figure 3.2 Schematic representation of sintering process.
3.4.2 Proteins and Amino Acids
Proteins are a complex group of biopolymers that consists of long chains of linear and branched amino acids linked together by peptide bonds. Chemical break down of proteins could result in a shorter chain amino acid that forms a precursor to nucleic acid, antigen, antibodies, hormones, and co‐enzymes. Proteins play a vital role in imparting structural integrity to cell walls and stiffness to tissues. Other functional role includes regulation of physiological activities, maintenance of normal pH, acts as chemical messenger, and storage pool (Hoffman 2019). Legumes and pulses are a good source of proteins from a plant source. Proteins from the animal source include eggs, red meat, fish, and dairy products such as cheese and whey powders. Based on the amino acid profile, proteins from animal sources are considered as complete proteins while plant proteins are considered incomplete due to lack of one or
