Imagine sitting at your computer telling a program what you want to eat and how many calories you want your meal to have, then hitting print and feasting on a pizza from your 3D printer. It’s not one of Willy Wonka’s prototypes, but a legitimate concept being developed by mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor and NASA.

Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, was recently awarded a six-month, $125,000 grant to develop the sci-fi printer, which could help eliminate food waste and worldwide hunger. The new technology could also help provide a sustainable food source for lengthy space missions, as the printer’s ingredients will have a shelf life of up to 30 years. It works by synthesizing a meal one layer at a time, using proteins, carbohydrates, oils, water, and powdered foodstuff.

Mechanically engineered food seems like a counterintuitive concept considering the prevalence of foodies and food porn, but Contractor thinks we need to change our perception of what we see as food. Experts agree the earth’s population will reach full capacity toward the end of this century, topping off at a standing room only 12 billion people. “I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” said Contractor.
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Are you one of the millions of Americans hell bent on putting this monster of a company, and its peers, in their place? There’s now an app for that. In fact, Buycott, which launched this month to much consumer excitement, will help you boycott products from brands you’ve no interest in supporting. So many consumers want to vote with their dollars, but because of the tangled web weaved by mergers and company ownership, few people know that when they innocently buy a box of Duncan Hines cake mix that the brand is owned by Monsanto.

Now with Buycott, you can simply scan the bar code of any product at the grocery store and find out which company is behind it. The idea is certainly not to complicate your grocery experience, what with the reading of ingredient and nutrition labels, too, but rather to arm you with more information to make a most educated decision. If this is your thing.

“A buycott is the opposite of a boycott. It is an active campaign to buy the products or services of a particular company or brand,” they say in the introductory pages of the app upon download. This suggests that while you may scan one brand and learn of its corporate heritage and choose not to buy it, you’ll likewise scan a different product and choose to support that brand instead. The Buycott app can work either way, obviously.
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Anyone who attempts an at-home yoga practice is familiar with the many distractions that can get in the way of our time on the mat. If it isn’t the telephone ringing, the neighbor’s dog barking, or the baby waking, it’s the lack of having a teacher to follow. Even the best yoga DVDs may leave us bored and uninspired after hours of viewing the same personality guiding us through the same practice.

Today, the advancement of technology enables at-home yoga enthusiasts the ability to bring a virtual yoga instructor into their living rooms. For those interested in a no-nonsense yoga teacher stripped down to the nuts and bolts of muscle and movement, a new app called iYoga Premium delivers your high-tech option.

Brought to you by 3D4 Medical in collaboration with Yoga One studio in San Diego, iYoga Premium provides more than 190 different yoga poses skillfully captured and demonstrated by a model that looks like she stepped off the page of your Grey’s Anatomy book.
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Since September, the LifeKraze App has gained more attention and made some improvements. Just today they released updates making the application available for Android users.

The Android platform allows users to share photos or links from any share-enabled application, helping them get in to the “team” aspect of LifeKraze. The Android app will function with several screen sizes, including tablets.

LifeKraze has added updates to the iOS app as well. Those Apple users can navigate on a rebuilt format that includes a new custom photo function with LifeKraze filters. The app is up to 4.5 times faster on the iPhone 4 and 3.5 times faster on the iPhone 5.
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With the advancements in technology it seems like people have to do less and less work everyday. Sometimes, the scenes from Wall-E don’t seem so farfetched because everything we want or need has, or will, come to us so easily with the help of technology. The good news is that some of these advancements actually lend themselves to a healthier lifestyle. Some of them, like our favorite apps for the new year, will still make you work for it.

The iTunes store offers a seemingly endless bounty of apps that can help and guide people to live and manage their diets and fitness regimens. But to make your search a little easier, we narrowed down just six apps that we think will impact your fitness and diet routine if you’re still up for a little hard work!

1. Juice

Juice is a fun app to help you connect the dots between your daily habits and personal energy levels. Use Juice for seven days, record daily energy levels, then start making connections between sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Juice gives a personalized assessment with tips for feeling more energized. The more you use the app the more you learn about yourself and become more familiar with your body. You can also record other daily habits by adding categories like stress, life balance, and mood. Ditch the energy drinks and download Juice instead! Cost: Free

2. AthleteInMe.com- Exercise Calorie Converter

This is one of the top grossing health and fitness apps on iTunes, and it helps you learn what types of physical activity you need to do to burn off a meal. The app emphasizes fast food meals and can help settle that should you/shouldn’t you debate. Athlete In Me will show just how many miles it takes to burn off a Big Mac. Download the app to see if it’s worth it. Cost: $2.99
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