Re: [DIYbio] I want to test my own food - where do I start

Along those lines, it's tough to be downhill of a field doused with pesticides.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/23/hawaii-birth-defects-pesticides-gmo


> On Aug 23, 2015, at 3:38 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz787@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Can you tell us what country you're in? It can help determine what the
> best path forward might be, from a supply-chain standpoint, legal,
> etc...
>
> The answer to your question lies largely in the domain of chemistry
> and physics. You need to figure out how to determine naturally present
> chemicals from the non-naturally present chemicals. For example, milk
> fat vs palm oil: these are likely to be mostly the same chain-length
> (number of carbons in the oil molecule chain) but probably differ
> slightly in their populations (maybe milk fat has mostly 16 carbons,
> but some percentage of 14 carbon molecules too... while palm oil is
> mostly 16 carbon molecules, with some percentage of 18 carbon
> molecules). Along with the chain-length population differences, which
> way the molecule is bent at each carbon could be slightly different.
> It is much easier to distinguish chains of different length which all
> have the same bending configuration, than it is to distinguish between
> chains of different length with different bending configurations...
> for example... with simple techniques (bending configuration aside,
> the chain-length largely determines the melting/solidification point).
>
> So when you move on to other molecules... searching antibiotics
> amongst all the tens/hundreds of thousands of different molecule types
> floating in all the cells of the food you buy... you can see the task
> is HUGE.
>
> You have to be very clever (for example, some very powerful machines
> use very smart and beautiful solutions to extract data and make sense
> of it, often these use tools or data-processing based on complex math)
> , or very patient.... or usually both.
>
> Personally, I think there are some common-sense techniques that you
> could start applying now, to avoid food that is worse quality...
> without investing in equipment, rather spending time learning about
> which foods are more susceptible to contamination to begin (i.e. sweet
> fruits tend to have heavier pesticide use). Also humans have an immune
> system and other ways to deal with toxicity... so for example if you
> wanted to have a baby and raise it, the food the mother consumes
> during pregnancy and while nursing, and the food the baby receives in
> general the first few years... is much more important to be concerned
> with. After early development, humans are much more able to defend
> against bad chemicals and infections.
>
> If you really want to get into equipment... I recommend learning
> about: UV/Vis spectrophotometry, FTIR, Gas-Chromatography, Mass
> Spectrometry, Raman spectrophotometry, Thin-layer chromatography,
> fractional distillation, redox indicators, ELISA, antibiotic
> susceptibility assays, PCR... and as many related topics as you come
> across.
>
> Cheers!
> -Nathan
>
> On Sun, Aug 23, 2015 at 3:56 AM, Philippo Möller
> <philippomoller@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>> I live in a third world country and it seems like there is no bio hack
>> community here. I am concerned about food and drinks I am buying and
>> consuming here on a daily basis. I do not trust the food safety authorities
>> here. For example, there are rumors here that diary products in the stores
>> are not made from milk but from palm oil. I would like to test such things
>> myself. Furthermore, I am conscious about excessive use of antibiotics in
>> meat and vegetable production. Is it possible to test such things myself?
>> What about pesticides? What about other poisons and pollutants that might
>> end up in food products?
>>
>> Basically I would like to test all of my food before I consume it. I am
>> willing to invest time in studying the subject and I am also happy to build
>> a little home lab. I'm also planning to publish my findings for other people
>> in my country to read.
>>
>> So where do I start? Are there any good websites? When I google "food
>> testing at home" all I get are pages for food intolerant people. I am
>> looking for a website with instructions on how to perform tests and what
>> equipment I will need to buy for my lab.
>>
>> Any help would be greatly appreciated and I am sure this question has been
>> answered somewhere already but I couldn't find it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> -Nathan
>
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