A gluten sensor for your food

After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, many people dedicate themselves to research.

What types of vitamins, foods, exercises can I take to avoid the effects of the disease?

It won’t take long for you to discover that things like gluten and dairy are among the top triggers for inflammation in the body.

Dairy products are fairly easy to locate, although many packaged foods have dairy products hidden inside. But the labels are usually clear.

Even eating out isn’t too bad – restaurants usually have several non-cheese / butter / milk options to choose from, with a few exceptions.

But gluten, what about it?

Try to find totally gluten-free foods on the road is hell. Yes, food labeling has improved a lot, you say… – My grocery store has a whole aisle of gluten-free foods!

Sure, but for most gluten avoiders, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Gluten is a hidden ingredient, a mixture of proteins found in wheat and other grains that give food a springy, dough-like consistency before cooking or baking.

And even naturally gluten-free foods can have gluten if they are made, produced, cooked, or shipped in one location with other products that do.

If a label or menu says “gluten free”, what other option do you have to believe them?

Technology at the service of food

That is exactly the problem that the Nima company is trying to solve. Its flagship product, a small, portable device with plug-in cartridges, looks like another tech gadget.

But the idea behind it and the problem it is solving is quite revolutionary. So if I go out to eat with friends, and a plate is labeled gluten free, or if nothing is labeled GF, but the waiter assures me that they can make a certain GF dish, all I have to do to be confident in this is a sample.

With the sensor, Nima can detect even small amounts of gluten (20 ppm or more) in just over 2 minutes.

The process is incredibly simple: each device comes with a few disposable cartridges that are inserted into the machine for testing. It fits into a 20 cent coin-sized serving of food, liquid or solid, and contains the chemicals necessary to interact with gluten and detect protein in your food.

In fact, the chemistry used is actually a proprietary antibody developed by Nima co-founders, Shireen Yates and Scott Sundvor. Once the cartridge is in, the device goes to work. A little over two minutes later, a small smiley appears indicating that there was no gluten present.

Although Nima does not rely on a database to provide users’ information about their food, their application gives them the ability to record the information they find about food in restaurants, creating a kind of Yelp reviews for the accuracy of the food labels.

Analysts predict dairy alternatives to be a $ 19,5 billion market by 2020 and the GF label can be found on conventional supermarket aisle labels.

According to a survey of Innova Insights, 91% of consumers believe that foods with recognizable ingredients are healthier, showing that even consumers without dietary restrictions want to know more about what is in their food and how it will affect their health.

The Nima Sensor is already on sale in Spain for a price of € 283.38. You can buy it and test your meals to add your restaurant to a restaurant database “gluten free”, but with a scientific backing that few will be able to have.