Just had an idea: DIY food-testing kit. Is it possible?

[mile18blister]

After reading the latest tainted food recall notice, it just struck me that a DIY food-testing kit would be a great thing to own right now. I don't have the background to know if this is feasible. Anyone have any ideas? It sounds like a great business idea, but if I could figure out how to do it I'd use the profits to make it unnecessary.

Edit: Changed DYI to DIY (Do-It-Yourself). Ouch. :blush: This is why I don't start many threads...

[karlrschneider]

1. Do Yourself In?

:D

I think it would be prohibitively expensive if it was comprehensive for all the different toxins & organisms that might be found...

[mile18blister]

4. Oops. Fixed it.

Seriously, though, E. coli, salmonella, listeria, melamine, and maybe lead, arsenic, and mercury are most of the contaminants I've heard about lately. Just throwing it out as an idea. As I said, I don't have the background to know how difficult it would be to test for most common things. I'd rather FDA, USDA, and other government agencies make it unnecessary.

[Warpy]

8. Heavy metals are easy

There are swabs out there for testing the lead in china. There may be equivalent tests for cadmium and mercury.

E coli, salmonella and listeria need petri dishes, culture media and a culturing oven, plus 3 days. Unless you freeze whatever it is you're testing, it'll be "off" by then. Maybe it's better to cook it properly.

As for melamine, I'm not sure, but it seems that some pretty pricey lab equipment would be necessary. By the time you found it and paid for it, the food industry would have moved on to another adulterant. Maybe it's better to learn how to cook and then you can leave processed food behind.

[Canuckistanian]

2. Just never buy one from Monsanto

Seriously, I don't think it would be feasible.

With all the thousands of possible harmful contaminating substances, you need a lab with expensive instrumentation to detect them all.

[mile18blister]

6. Couldn't test for everything.

But would it be possible to test for at least some of the bacteria and other contaminants in the headlines? And then sell upgrade kits, like computer anti-virus software.

[soothsayer]

3. sign me up for one! Wait---mebbe I don't want to know.

[supernova]

5. You could

concievably check for things like botulism or E. coli, the more common organic toxins you get from unsafe practices.

But melamine? Man that's way out in left field.

[rasputin1952]

7. Possible, but improbable, cost would be a primary deterrent...

You need to have some sort of lab to get reliable answers, at a minimum, for some contaminants, you need to have an incubator, several dyes and a microscope, as well a knowledge on what you're looking for, and how to differentiate between stains....:)

This is one reason why the FDA and Dept of Ag are so important. As the were defunded under this administration and a compliant GOP congress, things got worse. Not very long ago, the one thing we could count on to a great degree, was that our food supply was pretty well safe. Now it is almost virtually self-regulated, and that is absurd.

[Eugene]

9. A DIY kit probably wouldn't find unknown contaminants like melamine.

It took a forensic lab with a gas chromatigraph to figure out
what was in the pet food.

Chinese counterfeiters use melamine because it looks like protein
in a simple analysis. Other cheaters also pick ingredients that
can fool basic tests. It takes a real lab to catch deliberate
adulteration.

[deucemagnet]

10. Well, I have quite a lot of experience in microbiology,

and I've worked around some clinical microbiologists, and I don't see how this could be feasible for microorganisms. First of all, the amount of bacteria in contaminated food is too small to be tested directly, and have to be cultured prior to testing. This means including agar plates and an incubator with your kit, as well as an overnight wait while culturing bacteria. Second, pure cultures of each organism found on the food would have to be produced prior to testing (unless you wanted to go the PCR or immunodetection route, which brings a whole new set of complications). Trained clinical microbiologists can do this easily, but somebody with no training can easily introduce contamination or otherwise screw things up, especially outside of the controlled environment of the laboratory.

In short, I think it's just too complex and time consuming for a home test kit.

[mile18blister]

12. Part of my idea came from listening to Thom Hartmann.

He mentioned something about a factory that turned off its listeria sensors when they kept going crazy. I had hoped that testing for the presence of something such as E. coli (as opposed to figuring out exactly what strain of E. coli was present) would be feasible. Once again, I want the government agencies to do their job. I also want to stay alive long enough to vote responsible people into office. Believe me, if I could figure out a way to make money by filling in this gap, I'd put the money towards electing candidates who actually believe that government is the solution, not the problem.

[deucemagnet]

13. I heard that show, too.

I just did a google search on "Listeria sensor". They call it an "optical biosensor", and it's similar to some immunodetection techniques used in laboratories. I don't have time to read the primary research article right now, but from the news story it appears to me it would require a lab technician with some training to operate it, and "rapid detection" means a couple of hours, at a mininum. Also, the technique detects Listeria with an antibody containing a fluorescent tag, so you need a device with an argon laser and special optical sensors to detect the tagged Listeria cells.

Very interesting stuff, but not ready for home test kits by a long shot. Thanks for sharing your idea! I enjoyed reading about the Listeria sensor. :)

Link: http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2004/041005.Bhunia.sensor.html

[kestrel91316]

11. First you have to know EXACTLY what you are testing for:

Bacteria?

Bacterial toxins?

Chemical contaminants?

There's a VERY VERY VERY long list of potential bad things in your food, and NONE of us have anywhere enough money or time to test for them all, and would have to buy HUGE amounts of food to test for everything. Never gonna happen.

Even the FDA just tests for likely culprits, and if they don't find them, as in the melamine case, then finding out what exactly IS the contaminant is an herculean task suitable only for universities and governments with their toxicology laboratories.

BUY LOCAL. Patronize your local farmer's market and cook from scratch.