Allergen detection in your pocket

It is rare now to find a person in our Australian society who does not have at least one mobile phone. Everywhere you look people have iPhones. It seems to be the one to have.

The number of applications (apps) that are now available for these phones is just extraordinary. You can download an app to do just about anything from reading food labels to check them against your shopping list to working out whether a specific food meets your diet.

Now, with the attachment of a small device, an iPhone can now detect if there is any peanut in a food product

The iTube and it’s app can detect not only peanuts but other allergens as well, to laboratory level.

This amazing device and technology has been developed by US researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science

The test takes about 20 minutes and uses supplied chemicals, including a solvent. The sample has to be ground up prior to testing, so is not something that can be done whilst standing in the supermarket aisle.

The smart phone camera provides an image that is converted by the app into a measurement of the exact amount of an allergen present in the food.

This is not the only testing device available to the public but it is smaller and uses a device that many people already have, the iPhone, as it’s basis. This makes it a very user friendly option for those that have a food allergy.