Imagine scanning a tuna steak in your fridge and suddenly a tiny laser pulse beams an expiration date or, surprise, tells you it’s not really wild-caught.
That’s no longer a sci‑fi: new research from a group of academic researchers from the Jožef Stefan Institute in Slovenia and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece published in Advanced Optical Materials discusses how they were able to create edible microlasers crafted entirely from food-grade ingredients, essentially turning food in a tupperware container or on your dinner plate into a data-rich interface with the potential to relay information about freshness, provenance, even safety.
So, how does it work? Researchers created tiny edible lasers by using food-grade materials like olive oil, coconut oil, and sugar-based droplets combined with natural colorants such as chlorophyll or curcumin. The droplets act as tiny optical cavities that trap and amplify light using a principle called ‘whispering gallery mode resonance‘. When excited by an external light source, they emit a laser-like signal. Because the lasing behavior is sensitive to environmental factors like temperature, pH, and chemical composition, these microlasers can be used as sensors that can be embedded directly in food to help detect spoilage, confirm authenticity, or monitor freshness. And, according to the team, this happens without adding anything inedible to the product.
The paper explores different applications, such as edible barcodes, applied onto the food itself and not on packaging. Another idea is food with built-in freshness sensors, salad kits that glow a warning when the pH level shifts, or olive oil bottles that hold internal glow-signatures to confirm authenticity.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of technology for freshness, authenticity or changing chemistry built directly into the food itself. A couple of years ago, a company called Index Biosystems developed a form of invisible barcode called a BioTag, which is created by mixing baker’s yeast in extremely small amounts with water, then spraying or misting it onto products such as wheat. BioTags can later be reach using molecular detection techniques such as PCR and DNA sequencing.
The BioTag is a cool concept, but this new breakthrough from the Mediterranean scientists seems like something that – if it ultimately is commercialized – could be much more approachable for the end-user, who doesn’t have access to tools for things like DNA sequence detection (that’s if you can lasers shooting from your food as ‘approachable’).
With the debate about use-by date labels raging after after California became the first state to create a new approach in years (causing numerous other states to consider following suit), new technology like this shows us that someday our food might actually be able to tell us, via lasers, itself whether it is still good to eat.
With the debate over use-by date labels heating up – especially after California became the first state in years to introduce a new approach, prompting several other states to consider following suit – this kind of technology is a sign that someday our food might be able to tell us directly whether it’s still good to eat.
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