3D printed food is a particularly obscure concept, not fully understood or accepted by many people. The classier, more highly-regarded citizens of Jupiter get to enjoy the delights that are 3D printed food. Rural areas, such as Jupiter's Wastelands, continue to farm their own foods in primitive laser farms.
Forms of 3D Food Prining
Paste Printing
The most primitive form of 3D printing, paste printing is much more restrictive. Instead of having access to an array of atoms to assemble one's food, different pastes, purées, jellies, and other food items, can be used to print out food. A certain viscosity is required for these pastes, as too watery of a substance will not hold, and too solid of a substance will not pipe.
Atomic Printing
Atomic printing is the most modern and commercialised form of 3D food printing. As previously explained, it involves harvesting of materials on an atomic scale, something only achievable with industrial-level machinery. The average high class household will have a 3D printer; it is uncommon, but not unheard of, for a middle class household to have an atomic 3D printer, and there are no legitimate 3D printers in a low class household. (You must fill out various documents to own a 3D printer, inaccessible for low class homes).
Uses
Space Exploration
In every single licensed jovian spacecraft is a 3D printer, equipped with various atomic vats. 3D printed food is used as a last resort, as a backup in case the freeze-dried food normally brought aboard runs out. Freeze-dried food has a shelf-life of about five years, meanwhile the 3D printed food can last up to six times as long, meaning anything made can last much longer than their typical space-food.
Due to the size of 3D printers and their vats, freeze-dried is optimal for short-term space-flights, as it takes up much less space.
Recycling Landfills
There is an unimaginable number of atoms in the Yonderverse, many of which have no use. Abandoned landfills are taken apart; each tossed item is stripped down to an atomic level, packaged and sent to factories to be distributed around the globe.
Food Qualities
Everything about printed food can be controlled, based on what is inputted into the computers programming the printer. Texture, taste, smell, size, absolutely anything is a variable that can be altered. 3D printed food takes little time to create, and as new technologies are made, printer processing is becoming faster and faster. An entire meal for a typical jovian takes around five to ten minutes to create.
3D printed food is designed to contain the exact nutrients one needs. Any dietary requirements can be inputted into the program, so any allergies are taken into account. The base nutrients in each food are those required for an adult jovian of about thirty years old, in their prime.
Environmentally Friendly
3D food printing was not some fantastical invention scientists stumbled across, they actively sought out to turn this culinary dream into a reality. Three hundred years ago, when 3D printed food was first successful, Jupiter was suffering from an environmental breakdown. The intense industrial boom that occurred in the urban areas of Jupiter caused mass pollution, particularly with the set of domestic animals that were popular at the time.
Ramstens, one of the most common farm animals on Jupiter, produce obscene amounts of methane, similar to cattle of planet Earth in the same solar system. The methane had serious effects on the atmosphere of Jupiter, and being a gas giant, the consequences were magnified. The gases were able to shift the composition of the entire planet; only slightly, but nevertheless it has major consequences on the environment.
In urban areas, ramstens became illegal to own and farm. Those that already existed were either culled or allowed to live on and die of old age, provided they were already adults/geriatric. Many found this to be ethically questionable, but others argued that the fate of the planet was more important. This caused scientists to investigate into 3D printing food. At the time ramstens became an illegal domestic animal in certain areas, 3D food printing was considered experimental, so more research was put into turning it into a viable industry.
3D printing food is much more environmentally friendly than maintaining industrial farmlands. When the technologies were first invented, plant-matter was ground into pastes and piped into various edible shapes. Nowadays, with access to more complex machinery, atoms and molecules are isolated, gathered, and placed into chambers where they can be mixed and matched to produce an almost infinite amount of food items. Food can be designed on a number of websites and applications online, sent to a 3D printer, producing hand-held food items in just minutes.
Atom Harvesting
Atom harvesting is a unique form of resource gathering that few planets undergo. Those that do are typically very technologically advanced, as it requires incredibly complex and detailed machinery. Atom saws are the brawn of the operation. These blades are designed to carefully shear off slices of atoms from any material less durable than a diamond, funneled into a vat where they are carefully managed, to make sure that atoms do not cross-contaminate.
The actual process of atom harvesting is not complex, but due to the sensitivity of it all, the saw must operate within a vacuum, controlled remotely. Factories will harvest these atoms, and are distributed globally. Purchasing these atoms for your at-home 3D food printer is as simple as clicking a button online, on various e-commerce sites.
"primitive laser farms" is a fun sentence hahaha
hehehehe