Burger with a side of silicon sound appetizing? Hannes Harms, a design engineering student at the Royal College of Art in London, has come up with a concept that incorporates tiny, edible RFID tags embedded in your food. The concept, a food tracking system called NutriSmart, is similar to an idea Kodak came up with a few years ago, but takes RFID tracking beyond monitoring of your digestive tract.
Harms envisions that the RFID tags can track food down the entire supply chain. This way, it would help distributors at processing centers, as well as shoppers at grocery stores. The edible RFID tags could interface with a refrigerator to warn of expiring items, or could interact with ovens and other appliances to automate some cooking steps.
The edible RFID tags are also complemented by a “smart plate”, essentially a dinner plate containing and RFID reader that connects via Bluetooth to a computer. By placing an RFID-containing food on the plate, users can easily create a diet management system. Worried about allergies? Place the suspicious edible on the smart plate, and it can tell you about potentially dangerous ingredients. Wondering if those pricey sushi rolls really contain exotic fish or a cheap impostor? Plate that roll, and NutriSmart can tell you if something is fishy by showing the origins of everything in it. Of course this would require participation by the entire food industry and for the public to want such a comprehensive tracking system.
We think it’s pretty neat, as long as the diet analysis stops at the stomach!
Take a look at the video explaining NutriSmart:
(hat tip: Engadget)