Food quality anyone?

[Ma_Baker]

Hi all,

I have to assume that everyone reading this post eats food (but I could be wrong!)

Anyhow, I have always wondered how can someone tell, without touching or smelling the food item, if it is fresh, tasty, sweet etc.,

and now I know, it's a portable food spectrometer.

I saw a demo on the ABC in Japanese trends and BOY if I had the money and skills I would start importing into Oz immediately and make a fortune.

This is one of the links I found that maybe helpful.



Luv and kisses to all and bon appetite

[alpha0ne]

Wow.............thanks for the linkage Ma, what a great idea and so good to see Consumer Physics now employs ~ 100ppl, millionaires in the making

I will be looking at buying as soon as they become available though since I stopped buying ANYTHING edible that is allegedly fresh from the likes of coles/wooloes eg friut and veg + meat since a great store called opened it will still be a worthwhile purchase when I occasionally buy when out of town

[Uncle Fester]

Judging a book by the cover it seems.
With reflective (ATR)spectroscopy the penetration of solids is 0.5-2µm and must have direct contact, absolutely no air inbetween.
If you just hover over the sample like a phone camera, you might as well just use a phone camera.
I smell a scam.

The only propper way would be grinding up a sample of the food and preparing a sample so the IR spectrum can pass through it.

[mtv]

I smell a scam.

The only propper way would be grinding up a sample of the food and preparing a sample so the IR spectrum can pass through it.

Sounds a little too simple, doesn't it.

Brilliant if it actually works though.

[irritant]

With reflective (ATR) spectroscopy the penetration of solids is 0.5-2µm and must have direct contact, absolutely no air inbetween...
...The only proper way would be grinding up a sample of the food and preparing a sample so the IR spectrum can pass through it...

Exactly right. The best IR spectrum would be with a potassium bromide (KBr) pellet or Nujol mull. Not only must it be a grinded up sample, but dry too, because moisture and KBr, and moisture and IR, are not friends.

The reason they use ATR is because you don't need to prepare the sample as thoroughly, and moisture in the sample is OK. But as one can imagine, it does not yield anywhere near the same results as a proper pellet IR spectrum.

And one can never replace a proper scientific analysis with a simple scan. It gives one a very rough estimate of things at best.

IR only tells you about chemical bonds in a sample, and is often not quantitative (i.e. you cannot determine the levels/concentrations of something in a sample from it).

They must be using ratios or relationships between certain peaks/wavenumbers to say something about the sample. A lot of assumptions are thus made in such a case.

[lsemmens]

The theory sounds great, let's wait until there is a little more practical analysis.

[gordon_s1942]

We certainly need something to tell us when something like apples etc that look and feel 'As fresh As' are in reality, rotten to the core !!!
Mandarins (which I love) have a pefectly pliable skin on peeling but the damned fruit inside has gone 'stringy' from either age or the method used to store them.
Got at least three like that out of a pack bought at Coles last shopping day.
Cant say I have had any problems with vegetables as such as we only buy a small amount and use them with a couple of days.

[alpha0ne]

They must be using ratios or relationships between certain peaks/wavenumbers to say something about the sample. A lot of assumptions are thus made in such a case.

I think thats how they ascertain freshness based on algorithm + database, so maybe not as exacting as I would have hoped for