As a Sci Fi fan himself, even Brian Lederer can agree that this week’s blog title might seem too zany to be real. But it is: scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a robot chef who can analyze seasoning in food — scientifically!
Someday soon, automated and semi-automated meals might actually have that ‘cooked with love’ taste. Or the texture and flavors will be more suited to the human palate, at least! Brian Lederer recently came across a study out of the University of Cambridge, where scientists have developed and studied a unique robot chef of sorts. The robot chef has been created in order to determine a way in which automated systems could potentially teach robots what tastes good and what doesn’t. Texture is a main focus of the study, with respect to different phases of a natural human chewing process. In each test, the robot chef develops what the Cambridge scientists are calling “taste maps.” These notes act as a way to teach the robot a sort of “taste as you go” approach to cooking and adjusting flavor, texture and seasoning along the way.
Would you eat food prepared by a robot chef? Brian Lederer is certainly up for it! We’ve eaten meals prepared in an automated process for years at this point. And it’s fair to say that flavor and texture are often lacking in these time-crunch meals. Could this robot chef be the answer to all of the flavor lacking, low effort snacks out there?
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