Chinese firm serves up ‘smart chopsticks’ for food-wary diners

From recycled cooking oil to fox meat and chemicals, a litany of food scandals have turned Chinese diners’ stomachs, but a new “smart chopsticks” concept by Internet search giant Baidu could ease their woes. The device, which the firm says can tell consumers whether the food in front of them is safe to eat, was born of an April Fool’s video, a spokesman said Thursday. Baidu at the time had “no serious intention of actually pursuing this”, a spokesman said, but he explained the stunt had “generated a lot of excitement both internally and externally”.

Is it really a good thing that they invented these? Can we still enjoy our food?

Chinese social media user

The latest stage of development was revealed this week, with a new video released by the company showing a user placing the electronic chopsticks in three different cups of cooking oil. Sensors in the implements detect the oil’s temperature and its fitness for consumption, with the findings displayed on a smartphone app. The chopsticks flash a red light when cooking oil has a higher than 25 per cent level of TPMs, or total polar materials, an indicator of freshness, the spokesman said. It was not clear whether the “smart chopsticks” would go into commercial production.

Technology chopsticks