[1] Researchers at Stanford University in California have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that designs optimal burger recipes tailored to users’ preferences on taste, sustainability and nutritional content. This innovation was detailed in a study published in the scientific journal npj Science of Food.
[2] The AI-generated recipes also passed a real-world taste test with restaurant diners, the research team reported. “AI did not just generate plausible burger recipes – it created burgers that real people enjoy,” said Ellen Kuhl, a bioengineering professor at Stanford. “That may sound simple, but it means the model learned what makes food appealing to the human palate.”
[3] The modern hamburger originated in the late 19th century as a basic combination of minced meat and bread. Kuhl wrote in the journal Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering that although approximately 50 billion hamburgers are consumed annually in the US alone, the various combinations of burger ingredients are still largely unexplored.
[4] It is no surprise that the team estimates there are approximately 10 septillion possible burger recipes worldwide, which is a one followed by 43 zeros. To help organise these seemingly endless combinations, Kuhl and two colleagues developed a publicly accessible online tool called BurgerAI, which is trained on 2,216 recipes.
[5] The software calculates not only the taste of a burger using mathematical principles but also its texture, nutritional content, and sustainability for different age groups, genders, and consumer lifestyles. “For centuries, food design has been a matter of intuition, experience and trial and error,” Kuhl said. “We are beginning to show that AI can transform food design into a quantitative science with applications in other important fields.”
[6] The ultimate test involved a blind trial with 101 volunteers at a restaurant in San Francisco. Participants were served five AI-designed burgers, all professionally prepared, along with a Big Mac for comparison. According to the trio of researchers, the mushroom burger was more than 10 times more sustainable than the conventional product. In contrast, the bean burger had nearly double the nutritional value of its conventional counterpart.
[7] The AI burgers also held their own on taste. In terms of flavour, texture and overall verdict, they were at least on a par with the established burger classic, according to ratings on a seven-point scale. “We expected some trade-off between sustainability and consumer acceptance,” said lead author Vahidullah Tac. “But we found a burger with dramatically lower environmental impact could still compete with one of the world’s most successful burgers.”
[8] Food choices are among the most consequential everyday decisions people make, he stressed: “With one arrow, you can hit two targets – planetary health and personal health.”
Source: dpa, July 4
