A few links I've come across recently on food, farm, and kitchen innovations:
- Probiotics for seeds? "Researchers are testing more than 2,000 different microbial seed coatings on half a million test plots in the U.S."
- No more grocery store checkout lines? "The concept . . will allow grocery store customers to skip the check-out lines and instead scan items with their phones as soon as they stuff them into their cart."
- Hand-held food scanners to indicate nutritional content
- "Hold it about half an inch from homogeneous food — food with the same texture as a glass of OJ, as opposed to mixed vegetables — and the sensor compares the near-infrared signature with patterns stored in the cloud. It will relay nutrient info to your phone via BLE (Bluetooth low energy) and create a food log in the DietSensor app. Snap a pic with your phone to complete the process. Calories, carbs, protein, fat, and alcohol levels are covered. At the very least, it handles the record-keeping hassle."
- Run your whole kitchen through an app on your phone?
- Wine dispensers
- " Simply take a vial of wine and turn it upside down into the top of the machine. An embedded chip in the vial tells the machine what type of wine it is. Then, the machine chills the wine (red or white) to the optimal temperature, aerates it, and dispenses it into a glass below."