Choice of food and beverages are given through a panel of buttons. Many are capable of mixing ingredients with hot water to make coffee, tea, hot chocolate and chicken soup, however, the ingredients must have a long shelflife. Chips, candy and other snacks are often offered in vending machines, but have a high content of preservatives, salt and cholesterol. Other vending machines offer prepackaged food such as sandwiches, which must be made by hand and placed in the vending machine regularly to maintain freshness. To some degree, automatic food preparation is available today.
Bread makers are now quite common.
They will knead the bread, control the time required for it to rise and bake it all without need of user intervention. However it still requires the user to add flour, eggs and other ingredients in the right quantities. A task many may still consider tedious, especially after a long day at work and in the morning rush to work.