Fast food inspection

Microwaves and microwave ovens may not be synonymous with healthy eating, but they may hold the key to finding out how much fat and salt is in your food.

New industrial microwave sensors, which can measure the content of food, have been developed at

and

universities. The sensors can be configured to measure levels of wheat gluten, fibre, salt and, most recently, the fat content in meat.

The Microwave Profiler project — backed by a £400,000 EPSRC grant — is being led by Andrew Gibson from Manchester's Microwave and Communication Group, and Prof Paul Ainsworth from the Department of Food and Tourism Management at Manchester Metropolitan.

'The project stems from measuring cracks in aircraft wings using microwaves and the fact that when you cook something in a microwave oven different parts, such as water and oil, heat up at different rates,' said Ainsworth. He said that by taking this a stage further the researchers believed that they could measure food content.