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When you think of IKEA and food, you probably think meatballs. But now, thanks to researchers at Carnegie Mellon, you may also think pasta, as the team’s created “morphing” versions of the wheat-water-and-egg pieces that flat-pack just like furniture from the Swedish megastore. “Assembling” the pasta is also easy as it only requires boiling it in water. (Which is great, because who needs yet another one-off allen wrench?)
Inverse reported on the prototype pasta pieces, which the researchers described in a paper published in the journal
Science Advances. The director of the University’s Morphing Matter Lab, Lining Yao, led the team as it aimed to figure out how to significantly diminish the amount of packaging necessary to transport pasta.
Groovy flat-packed pasta could help revolutionize food production
• 6 min read
Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.Morphing Matter Lab, Carnegie Mellon University
Pasta is beloved for its diversity of shapes, from tubes of penne to spirals of fusilli. However, these bulky 3D structures often require large packages to store. Now scientists have developed flat pasta that can morph into familiar shapes when cooked, which could make them easier to ship not just on Earth, but in space.
Morphing Matter Lab, Carnegie Mellon University
Scientists have designed pasta that folds flat but regains its traditional shape as it s boiled.
6 MAY 2021
In our efforts to rein in our overwhelming burden upon Earth s living biosphere, every little thing adds up. Even the shape of pasta (of all things!) can make a difference in our consumption of resources.
Which is why scientists have now created flat-packed pasta that s more efficient to package and transport, but can then unfurl into shape once it s in the pot.
Food packaging is a huge contributor to landfills. In the US for instance, food packaging along with food waste makes up almost half of all solid consumer waste. But scientists estimate that flat-packed noodles could reduce pasta packaging by up to 60 percent, by eliminating all the air space included in different shaped pastas, like tubes of penne and spirals of fusilli, when packed.
Charles Q. Choi, Contributor
(Inside Science) Pasta is beloved for its diversity of shapes, from tubes of penne to spirals of fusilli. However, these bulky 3D structures often require large packages to store. Now scientists have developed flat pasta that can morph into familiar shapes when cooked, which could make them easier to ship not just on Earth, but in space.
The researchers drew inspiration from the way flat-packed items such as furniture made storage and shipping easier. They sought to make food that could package flat for slimmer containers, since food packaging is one of the biggest sources of waste in the world, said study senior author Lining Yao, director of Carnegie Mellon University s Morphing Matter Lab in Pittsburgh.