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Essay / The positive impact of 3D printing on our health and the environment
Within a few decades, 100 billion land animals will be needed to provide meat, dairy, eggs and leather goods to the world's population. Continuing this breeding could have disastrous, even unsustainable, consequences on our planet. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Furthermore, a study conducted shows that in 2025, 11 million people will suffer from diabetes. Worse still, another study indicates that the number of people who will suffer from diabetes in 2025 will be double, or 22 million (Boyle et al., 2001). Today, around 315 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes. Many people think that diabetes is caused by sugar consumption, this is a deception. Diabetes is actually caused by a typical diet of meat and animal products. The two problems stated above can both be solved by a simple change, that of our diet. Meat and animal products in our diet are almost indispensable, but maybe there is a different way, or maybe there will be another way. 3D printing is a revolutionary development technology that is helping to enable completely new approaches to design and manufacturing. Especially for the implications in the geopolitical, economic, social, demographic, environmental and security sectors (Campbell, Williams, Ivanova, & Garrett, 2011). 3D food printing is currently limited by cost, time and quantity of large-scale production (Lin, 2015), but soon 3D printers will be faster, cheaper and more accessible to the normal population and households. In the future, 3D printers will be able to print almost every type of food product imaginable, including foods that we eat a lot of, like fruit, pasta, chocolate, and even gum. Also, foods not found in nature, such as edible plants. And we will be able to print personalized nutritional foods (Tran, 2016). When you consider the amount of research that is being done, and still being done, on 3D printing technology, and when you consider what is already possible with 3D food printing, I think the 3D printing will have a major positive impact on both our health and our environment, eliminating a large part of the global agricultural sector. When it comes to societal choices regarding food, several trends are emerging. People are increasingly aware of the choices they make, they believe that food can benefit their health as well as the environment. To show their awareness, people are starting to pay more attention to healthy food products and sustainable food products. Over the past two decades, growing environmental awareness, animal welfare and worker safety are seen as trends in human society, which has led people to question modern agricultural practices . This has resulted in a growing demand for organic and sustainable products, perceived as less damaging to the environment than conventionally grown foods (Saba & Messina, 2003). Consumer concern for the environment emerged in the late 1960s. This was the cause of a general distrust of society, industry and modern technology. These affected consumers can be defined as people whoknow that the production, distribution, use and disposal of products involve external costs and who evaluate these external costs negatively. These people try to minimize this negative effect by modifying their own food consumption behaviors (Grunert & Juhl, 1995). One of the behavioral changes is to purchase and consume sustainable food products. In the process of creating sustainable and organic products, the use of chemicals and pesticides is avoided. These substances are considered harmful to the environment. Unfortunately, the price of sustainable and organic products is known to be relatively high compared to normal food products. This makes purchasing and consuming organic produce not an option for many people. Through emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, the agricultural sector is responsible for about a fifth of the annual increase in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming ( Grasty, 1999). 3D printing can help solve this environmental problem by eliminating a large part of the agricultural sector (Tran, 2016). This will be done by printing food instead of using land to grow that food. Instead of growing different varieties of food, the agricultural sector will now focus on producing different ingredients. This change in the sector will ensure that the human footprint on our planet will be significantly limited and thus reduce climate change (Tran, 2016). On the other hand, this change will also have a downside. If agricultural practices completely change or are completely replaced, it will have a dramatic impact on our ecosystems (Tran, 2016). Nutrition constitutes the most important environmental impact on our health over the lifespan (Kussmann & Fay, 2008). More and more people understand the importance of their health and pay more attention to their diet. Many people also need a special, personalized nutritional plan. This can be caused by dietary needs, allergies, or even personal taste preferences. Poor nutrition is one of the leading causes of unfulfilled genetic potential, reducing physical and cognitive performance and increasing the risk of several diseases (Milner, 2002). Diabetes, artists, heart disease, dementia, obesity and cancer together account for 70% of all causes of death worldwide. These diseases are all lifestyle-related and therefore each of them is preventable. When it comes to these diseases, animal products all play a leading role. Diabetes expert and researcher Dr Wear Bernard says diabetes is caused by a diet that increases the amount of fat in the blood, pointing to a typical diet of meat and animal products. Additionally, Harvard conducted a research in which they looked at 9 studies, finding that just one intake of processed meat per day increases the risk of diabetes by 51%. Additionally, research based on 800 studies conducted in 10 different countries shows that there is a direct link between processed meat consumption and cancer (Andersen & Kuhn, 2016). Personalized nutrition can ensure that an individual's health status and body type needs and preferences are met. With our traditional food supply chain, personalized nutrition comes with additional costs. Indeed, foods with controlled ingredient formulations are much more difficult to produce. This is where the impression.