Picture this: A tiny robot chef assembles and cooks chewy blueberry breakfast muffins that are nutritionally optimized based on biometric data. Just before lunch, the internet-connected storage container in your refrigerator sends a notification to your phone saying, “It's finally time to eat kale.'' Instead of going to the store to buy a steak for dinner, you can get perfectly marbled chunks of meat grown from animal cells in a mini bioreactor right on your kitchen counter.
These fictional home appliances probably sound like props from a sci-fi movie, but experts say they're (mostly) based in reality. Engineers recently successfully 3D printed and laser-cooked a cheesecake, but they were admittedly a little biased. You can now order at-home test kits that reveal food sensitivities, vitamin deficiencies, and overall gut health. Smart Espresso His machine allows you to brew coffee from a remote location and of course from your bed. And if you live in Singapore, Tel Aviv, Washington DC, or San Francisco, you can already eat lab-grown chicken in restaurants. (Verdict: It tastes like chicken.)
There is no doubt that home cooking will look a lot different in 50 years. While new technology and scientific innovations will power future kitchen appliances, it is climate and health concerns that are really driving the need for kitchen appliances. Experts now predict that if there is any hope of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, carbon emissions must fall by almost 50% by 2030, 20 years earlier than previously predicted. As our population swells (at least for now) and about a third of the food we grow is never eaten, it's hard to imagine how resource scarcity and emissions will increase in parallel. It's easy to imagine. “Food waste is a huge problem in developed countries, but food insecurity continues to rise globally,” said Lisa Yong, director of consumer technology at global trend forecasting agency WGSN. . She predicts that the best kitchen appliances of the future should not only perform multiple cooking functions, but also help reduce energy consumption, increase personal nutrition, and prevent impending resource shortages. .
Of course, such a utopian kitchen may or may not actually become a reality. At least for now, that's unlikely in most parts of the world where 800 million people struggle to find enough food, let alone with fancy new cooking techniques. But while we dream of a great future for home cooking, we've given scientists, designers, engineers, and writers a challenge. It's about inventing kitchen appliances that benefit sustainability or health (or both), based on today's technology and design trends. It could be on store shelves within the next 50 years. Here are their top 10 ideas. Come back here in 2073 and see how many ideas became reality.
2020s
smart saver storage container
There's no easier way to organize your fridge so you can see and use everything before it expires. It will inevitably end up in the compost bin or landfill. Type “smart saver”. These airtight, internet-connected containers use scales and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify what's inside. An LED panel on the front of each box lets you know when you need to eat something, and alerts are sent to your phone with recipe ideas for what to do with wilting kale or out-of-season carrots. . —Brian X. Chen, Consumer Technology Lead Writer new york times
