How AI Will Change the Way We Cook
I love to cook, I treat it like a sport and look for an excuse to prepare complex or unique dishes. I think designing a menu for a group of people with different allergies and preferences is a good time. Until recently, smart cooking technology didn’t appeal to me because I assumed it was solely for people who felt so clueless in the kitchen that they needed help from a machine.
But over the past year, I’ve interacted with cooking devices—from ovens to grills to refrigerators—that don’t just use smart technology, but incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning. While AI won’t be able to take all the work out of cooking or make you fall in love with cooking if you don’t, it can make cooking an order of magnitude easier… not just for newbies, but for experienced cooks as well.
AI can help you avoid undercooking (or overcooking) food
For many people, their dislike of cooking is based on anxiety. It’s hard to mess up a salad, but making something that can be messed up can be scary—what if you undercook it and poison yourself or others? What if you overcook it and ruin an expensive piece of meat? I’ve cooked with friends who have these common fears—friends who don’t have my ability to use visual cues to tell if a protein is done, or who have a hard time believing that a little pink is safe.
Tools like a fire prediction thermometer can help ease this worry. The Combustion Smart Thermometer can be used in almost any situation: on the grill, in a pot of simmering water, sous vide, in the oven or on the stovetop. The device has eight sensors along the length of the probe, allowing you to measure the inside and outside surface of what you’re cooking. Artificial intelligence and an algorithm are then used to predict exactly when you should remove your food from the heat. This means you don’t have to stand over the stove and wait (the app and sensor do that part). It also means you won’t overcook your food due to safety concerns, which 50% of people admit to doing .
Late last year, Combustion specifically changed its algorithm to ensure that food meets USDA-recommended standards that go beyond simple temperature thresholds. For example, although you typically think of chicken as “done” when it reaches 165°F , the USDA has determined that you can achieve the same food safety by cooking it for a longer time at a lower temperature . as if you were cooking sous vide. A burn thermometer can determine whether your food is “safe” based on the entire cooking history of your protein. This can give them the confidence they need to work with protein and, when they see better results, gain confidence in cooking. Even as an experienced chef, I love that Combustion does those math calculations for me so I don’t have to rely on external cues like how the protein feels.
There are many other temperature sensors with features like the Combustion, including the ThermaPro (which I haven’t tested) and the Meater 2 (which I found unsatisfactory ).
AI can help reduce food waste
When I shop for groceries, I often forget what I already have in my refrigerator and pantry, resulting in a lot of extraneous purchases—especially egregious when I buy fresh produce with a short expiration date. Companies are working to solve this problem. Samsung’s latest refrigerators feature Food AI technology and use cameras inside the refrigerator to tell you when you might need to buy more. These refrigerators, part of the Bespoke range, are equipped with AI Family Hub+ and AI Vision Inside systems. It’s not just that the hub can recognize the fresh food in your refrigerator (up to 33 of them, anyway); it will also suggest recipes based on these ingredients.
I haven’t tested Bespoke yet, but the video of the fridge in action shows clear enough images that you’ll be able to easily tell what’s in your fridge from the app, meaning you’ll never have to wonder if you’re out of food. butter or eggs while you’re at the supermarket.
AI can help you figure out what to cook for dinner
New technologies are moving forward. Artificial intelligence voice assistants are already built into many cooking devices. You can give your assistant a list of ingredients, a mood or a craving, or simply let him ask you questions and he’ll develop meal suggestions for you.
Even if you don’t have a device that can communicate with you, there are plenty of apps that can provide hints on the fly. DishGen , MealsAI and MealPractice use artificial intelligence models like Gemini as the core engine to make suggestions based on the language you enter, be it a set of ingredients or a query based on your mood.
Using artificial intelligence while cooking can really be fun and save you time.
There are several smart ovens on the market from Tovala, Breville and June, but for the past few months I’ve been using the Brava , an expensive toaster with a brain. In the toaster’s GUI, you search for any ingredient and it generates a list of possible recipes. Select one and they will help you insert the thermometer probe, as well as tell you where to place the food on the tray and where to place the tray. Then you press the button and leave. The oven will send you a live video of the cooking process, monitor its progress and turn off exactly when the food is ready.
The oven uses light technology instead of the normal heating elements you would expect from an oven. It focuses heat only where it’s needed for as long as it’s needed, especially on the foods you’re cooking. Instead of heating up the entire oven, the food is cooked from above and below in a very small space. As a result, cooking time is usually cut in half, and sometimes more. Last week I made French fries using raw potatoes. They were perfectly crispy and cooked through in eight minutes.
While Brava currently only uses very light artificial intelligence, it’s easy to imagine that in the future machine learning could help companies process the data coming from their devices to create more recipes and improve existing ones. The technology isn’t there yet—I spoke with Brava Product Manager Zach Selmon, who noted how difficult it is to create a set of parameters to ensure that everyone making a recipe gets the same results when so many of the variables involved can be different, from the ingredients, the environment, to the cook. For this reason, Brava still uses a team of chefs along with its data engineers. What surprised me about Brava is how much I enjoy not having to think about what I’m cooking. It turns out that the tedious part of the process, which involves watching the dish as it cooks, can be skipped; An oven that cuts cooking time in half or more is even better: you can enjoy the cooking and the results without worrying about the gaps in between.
I’m excited about the future of AI kitchens.
As a self-confessed control freak, I wouldn’t want to give up the process of cooking or cooking, but it turns out I enjoy it. This saves me time and allows me to focus on the parts of cooking that I really enjoy. I’ve given smart thermometers to several friends and these devices have changed meal times in their homes. They buy the best cuts of meat because they are less afraid of spoiling it. They take more risks and are more confident. In the future, AI technologies will make this process even easier, giving you the ability to control your meal preparation from the comfort of your sofa or on the terrace, while spending more time with family and friends. No, a gadget won’t turn you into a cooking enthusiast, but it can make cooking more convenient.