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Is this an opportunity for a startup? Help crowdsource payments for random DNA tests of the food at local stores. Fish and olive oil, to start. If a group of
by berntb 10y ago
Is this an opportunity for a startup?
Help crowdsource payments for random DNA tests of the food at local stores. Fish and olive oil, to start.
If a group of people know everyone involved and do a round robin for who collects the samples and which lab to send them to, it should be more trustworthy than any alternative.
(The samples need to be sent in without packages, so employees at the testing labs can't call the stores and charge for faking the tests.)
Edit: Hmm, the business opportunity might rather be with automating lab tests..?
- theli0nheart 10y agoCool idea, but it'd far cheaper, faster, and more reasonable to just have people who know what foods actually should taste like run the "tests" as opposed to running full blown DNA analysis.
- berntb 10y agoDoes that include olive oil? I am not certain I'd know the difference... :-(
- theli0nheart 10y agoHah. I'd think so. I couldn't tell the difference either, but I'm sure there are people who can. :)
- berntb 10y agoHow do you find people like that? How can you trust them? They aren't so common I'd imagine -- but I sadly know far too few professional cooks. :-) Edit: According to my googling, it seems even experts often fail the taste testing of olive oil. I guess you could wait a few decades and see how your arteries are doing -- or use a lab.
- CartyBoston 10y agoFish yeah but extracting useful DNA from olive oil and other processed foods/ingredients is not straightforward.
- sampo 10y ago> extracting useful DNA from olive oil [...] is not straightforward. It can be, it you buy a kit dedicated for this purpose: https://norgenbiotek.com/product/olive-oil-dna-isolation-kit https://norgenbiotek.com/product/olive-oil-dna-isolation-kit
- prostoalex 10y agoYes, vegans consistently run into the problem of people selling non-vegan stuff and misrepresenting it as vegan, and sometimes the unscrupulous link of the chain is at the wholesaler, supplier or importer level, not the local restaurant. E.g. http://www.livingvegan.org/Articles/viewarticle/25/Los%20Angeles%20Restaurants%20Exposed.html http://www.livingvegan.org/Articles/viewarticle/25/Los%20Ang...