Don't eat the yellow snow!

U.S. chemists are working on a dipstick test that may soon take the guesswork out of deciding if it's safe to reheat those leftovers in the back of the fridge.

If the food is unsafe the stick turns yellow!

Scientists at the University of South Carolina say their kit for determining whether food is spoiled could be on store shelves in two to three years.

They say their diagnostic test, which researchers describe as a dipstick, can detect the presence of chemicals formed by disease-causing bacteria in less than five minutes.

"There's no other test like this targeting the consumer market right now that I am aware of," study leader John Lavigne, assistant professor chemistry and biochemistry, said in a news release.

"It has the potential to change the way individual diners think about the quality of their food and greatly impact public health."

Lavigne sees the kit as a tool that consumers can use at home and carry with them when they eat at restaurants, helping to avoid illnesses and even deaths caused by food poisoning.

Your "tastes OK to me" scribe;
Allan W Janssen