Graphic: Morphing Matter Lab. Carnegie Mellon University
Pasta boxes are bound by the constraints of their contents; the rigid stalks of spaghetti require different packaging than the wide coils of a good fusilli. Now, a team of researchers has developed flat pastas that turn into familiar shapes when cooked, with the goal of reducing packaging waste.
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By incising grooves on a flat pasta made of standard semolina flour, the team was able to cook two-dimensional pastas into three-dimensional shapes. Wavy pastas, boxy pastas, wing-shaped pastas, and ring-shaped pastas a diversity of noodles could be made based on the grooves impressed onto the flat surfaces. The team’s research is published today in Science Advances.
Flat Pasta That Turns Into 3-D Shapes â Just Add Boiling Water
The engineers are in the kitchen, again.
Researchers say the flat-to-plump pasta is not only fun to make, but uses less packaging, has a smaller carbon footprint and cooks faster than traditional dried pasta.Credit.Morphing Matter Lab/Carnegie Mellon University
By Marion Renault
May 5, 2021, 2:14 p.m. ET
Donât be fooled. This pasta may look like your average fettuccine. But cook it for seven minutes in boiling water and it will transform, coiling into a neat spiral.
The dynamic noodle is one of several designed and debuted this week by researchers at a Carnegie Mellon University lab.
Flat-Packed Noodles Create More Sustainable Packaging, Transportation and Storage Aaron Aupperlee
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A team of researchers led by the Morphing Matter Lab is developing flat pasta that forms familiar shapes when it s cooked. Their work is the cover story in this month s issue of Science Advances.
People love pasta for its shapes from tubes of penne and rigatoni to spirals of fusilli and rotini.
But what makes farfalle different from conchiglie also makes the staple a bear to package, requiring large bags and boxes to accommodate the iconic shapes of pastas around the world.
A research team led by the Morphing Matter Lab at Carnegie Mellon University is developing flat pasta that forms into familiar shapes when cooked. The team impresses tiny grooves into flat pasta dough made of only semolina flour and water in patterns that cause it to morph into tubes, spirals, twists and waves when cooked.