Lapka Sensor Tells You if Food is Organic Through iPhone
0 
When you look at a vegetable or fruit, you honestly cannot tell whether it’s organic or not. Organic and non-organic foods look the same, for the most part, so discerning the two proves difficult unless you look at the label. There are also times when you buy food at a farmer’s market, and the farmer doesn’t label the food “organic” when it really is. When that happens, your only way of telling if the food is organic is by asking them.
There’s another dilemma, too. If you’re an avid organic-eater and don’t want to eat anything non-organic, you’ll probably freak out when you go to your friend’s house and eat an unlabeled banana. Okay, maybe you won’t freak out, but it will bother you.
And what about when you travel? You certainly can’t tell if your food is organic when the labels are in a different language. You may end up eating loads of pesticide-laden food when you mistakenly thought it was pesticide-free.
These are just a few scenarios where having an organic-detecting device would be helpful. Before the invention of Lapka, there was no other way to tell automatically whether or not food was truly organic.
Lapka is a device you can hook up to your iPhone that tells you how organic your food is. There are four interchangeable sensors which allow your phone to measure pesticide levels. All you have to do is plug Lapka in and poke your food with the steel probe. Lapka works with an app that detects the chemical concentrations of nitrate, since nitrate is usually found in fertilizers used on non-organic farms.
On top of all that, Lapka can detect “real-time radiation levels, electromagnetic field levels, and humidity levels.”
You’d think this device would be bulky and hard to handle, but it’s actually really sleek. It’s made of wood and ivory plastic, and it almost looks like it’s part of the iPhone, especially if you have a white one.
Don’t get too excited, though. Lapka is expected to be launched at the end of 2012 for a whopping $220. I don’t know about you, but I’m not obsessed with organic food enough to dole out a couple hundred bucks. But it’s still a cool invention, nonetheless.
