Fearful of accidentally chomping down on cardboard-stuffed dumplings or toxic chicken, Chinese consumers may soon be able to run safety tests on their food before putting it in their mouths.
toxic：有毒的，中毒的
According to a report from the official Xinhua news agency, scientists at the Tianjin University of Science and Technology in northern China have developed an at-home testing kit to help consumers detect more than 60 varieties of chemicals in their food.
The tests, conducted with indicator paper, let consumers know within minutes if a food sample contains harmful substances, Xinhua said, predicting the product will likely be in high demand.
indicator paper：试纸
With countless scandals ─ from hormone-infused meat to exploding watermelons ─ appearing in the news day-after-day, Chinese consumers have developed healthy fears over the quality of their food in recent years.
hormone：激素 infused：灌输，注射
One of the most jarring incidents occurred in 2008, when dairy products adulterated with the industrial chemical melamine led to the deaths of six infants and made around 300,000 others ill.
jarring：不和谐的，冲突 adulterated：掺入次品的，不纯的
Most of China’s food safety scandals have been associated with domestic products, which has led to a growing preference for foreign brands and fueled the emergence of premium grocery stores like China Resources Enterprise Ltd.’s Ole that import a majority of what they sell.
domestic：国产的 premium：保险费，额外费用
Yet recently even the safety of foreign brands has come into question. Chicken sold by Yum Brands Inc.’s KFC was alleged late last year to have contained higher than acceptable levels of antibiotics, causing an uproar on China’s social media sites and affecting KFC’s sales.
alleged：宣称，断言 antibiotics：抗生素 uproar：骚动，喧嚣
Shanghai ‘s food-safety regulator said in late December it was investigating whether Yum responded appropriately to test results that had shown eight out of 19 batches of chicken samples Yum sent to labs for testing in 2010 and 2011 had high levels of antibiotics. A spokesman for Yum said as soon as the company learned of the Shanghai watchdog’s test results, it immediately contacted restaurants, removed the chicken from outlets and destroyed it.
Food testing has typically been done in labs, but researchers in Tianjin believe consumers would prefer to take control of testing themselves, the Xinhua report said. It did not say when the testing strips might be released or how much they would cost.
Others have attempted to empower consumers to protect themselves from contaminated food. IBM researchers in Beijing have developed a mobile application that uses barcodes to provide users with safety ratings for food items they find in the grocery store and helps companies monitor contamination pitfalls during transportation and manufacturing.
barcodes:条形码 pitfalls：陷阱，诱惑
While many at-home food safety testing products already exist in the U.S. and elsewhere, they are not comprehensive, testing only for single contaminants such as salmonella or e-coli. Given the number and variety of food scandals they’ve faced, Chinese consumers aren’t likely to be satisfied with a single-serving test.
salmonella：沙门菌 e coli：大肠杆菌