However, now that is about to change.
A team of researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, are hoping to make it easier for consumers to tell if a package containing meat or salad greens is contaminated with a pathogen like E. coli, by simply looking at a thin plastic patch called ‘Sentinel Wrap’.
The transparent, durable and flexible sensing strip has one side coated with a microarray of droplets of DNA molecules known as DNAzymes. If a pathogen comes in contact with the DNAzymes, the strip will light up.
Shoppers then have to use an app on a mobile device to "read" the fluorescence to see if the food inside is spoiled.
Winsightgrocerybusiness.com quoted McMaster professor Carlos Filipe as saying: "Essentially the sequence has been designed so if a bacteria is present, that DNA is going to be broken in a particular location."
