Printing a blend of fruit and vegetables. New advances on critical variables and shelf life of 3D edible objects

A printed smoothie of selected fruit and vegetables was obtained. The morphological and microstructural properties were analyzed as affected by print speed and flow. Also, the changes in microbiological, antioxidant and sensorial attributes were monitored for 8 days at 5 °C. The best reproduction of the virtual model was observed at flow of 101.4%. Actual and estimated printing times did not match because the common firmware and slicing software are still unable to predict the food behaviour during printing. The appearance of 3D printed samples was more appreciated than the no-printed smoothie. Antioxidant capacity was constant during storage at 10.9 mg trolox/100 g while total phenolic content reduced from 18.8 to 10.5 mg GAE/100 g. A concentration in bacteria of 4.28 Log CFU/g was observed after printing suggesting that 3D food printing will have to consider the sanitization of each part in contact with food before its application in restaurants and at industrial scale.