By Liane Doucet, BBC Channel News Culture & Future Tech
At a recent Shanghai food exhibition, golden-brown bao buns, micro-herb salad, and mango‑coconut foam didn’t come from a celebrated chef but from Culina, an AI trained on millions of flavour pairings, cooking techniques, and regional tastes.
The food industry is entering a quiet revolution: AI is moving beyond recipe recommendations to design dishes from scratch. Over the past months, startups such as NeuroPalate and TasteCore—and Great Machine United’s Heleneai division—have launched platforms that use machine learning to balance molecular compatibility, cultural trends, nutrient profiles, and even climate impact. The result? Dishes humans never imagined yet still find delicious.
“Our models break tradition like a composer invents a new sound,” says Dr. Ines Zhao, Heleneai’s director of innovation. “They pair saffron and tomato in ways no human would.”
In commercial kitchens across Africa and Southeast Asia, chefs have both embraced and questioned these AI‑inspired menus. In Morocco, for example, an AI‑designed tagine swapped meat for local legumes and seaweed extract. It captured traditional textures while reducing environmental impact.
Chef Kamal Abbassi of Parisian École de Cuisine warns: “Flavour is memory and ritual. AI can’t feel hunger or nostalgia.” Yet he admits that students cooking with AI feedback learn skills faster than those relying on textbooks.
In blind taste tests held in Tokyo, Berlin, and Nairobi, tasters preferred AI‑developed dishes nearly 55% of the time, praising their balance and novelty. But critics ask: will AI‑designed food erase regional identities or prioritise efficiency over heritage?
Developers insist AI will act as co‑chef, not replacement. “We don’t want to erase grandmother’s kitchen,” Zhao stresses. “We want it alive in 100 years—just with a few new ingredients.”
As climate change strains agriculture and urban lifestyles squeeze time, AI may offer a powerful ally for sustainable, inventive cooking. So the question remains: would you eat a meal dreamed up by a machine?
