A Plate That Tells You if Your Food is Safe

On a recent sushi night out, a friend of mine attempted to joke with the waitress asking her whether the sushi she had just served him was radioactive. She didn’t find it funny and rightly so. It is a valid question after all, with everything that has been going on in Japan. It would be nice to have some reassurance that what you’re putting in your mouth is not going to harm you. 

Designer Nils Ferber has tried to address this concern (and save other waitresses the need to answer silly jokes), by creating a concept for a Fukushima Plate. It is an ordinary kitchen plate with built-in radioactive meter to visualize your food’s level of contamination. You have an option to set the limiting value yourself since different people and governments perceive the dangers of radioactive radiation differently. 

When there is no increased radiation measurable all OLED rings remain off. One glowing ring tells you that there is slightly increased radiation coming from your food but nothing to worry about too much. Two glowing rings mean there is significantly increased radiation and your dish is not as healthy as it may look, and if you see a red ring then you just wasted your time preparing your food.

Mr. Ferber thinks that “the plate might become an indispensable tool of survival in the future”, which I certainly hope it doesn’t. However, I really like the idea to have an easy and quick way of checking the levels of chemical and radioactive contamination in the food that I buy. 

via treehugger