Is Gluten hiding in YOUR food?

Find out how this new device is dedicated to helping people with certain food allergies.

According to the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, about three million Americans have celiac disease, not to mention approximately 18 million more people are estimated to have gluten sensitivity. For these people, avoiding gluten… even traces of gluten...can be tough. But a San Francisco based startup is working on a sleek handheld device that will soon make life a lot easier.   We spoke with CEO of 6SensorLabs, Shireen  Yates about this much anticipated new device.

Shireen Yates CEO, 6SensorLabs

I was diagnosed with a bunch of food allergies about 8 years ago, I found it incredibly difficult to eat out side of the home, eat in social settings, at work I took a lot of clients out, consistently affected to exposure to foods I wasn't supposed to eat, and what I was most allergic to was gluten. And I found it tremendously difficult to avoid gluten even when ordering off the gluten free menu even when people told me it was gluten free. 

It all culminated at a wedding a few years ago where I asked the waitress are these appetizers gluten free.. I usually come prepared… and the waitress said how allergic are you. And I was kinda frustrated  by that response and though, gosh if I could just take a sample of this, or put the power in my hands…and that's kind of where the idea was born.

It's a chemical based test so we're essentially taking a sample of food and then processing it and then sensing whether or not there's trace amounts of gluten in that sample, and we're doing that in  a way that's fast and portable and easy to cary around, that was really where we wanted to focus the innovation, make sure this was something that you could take with you on the go and use whenever you have a shred of doubt about anything you're about to put in your body. 

People said they wanted something that was accurate that was reliable was easy to use, that was fast and portable and all of those dimensions are what's guiding our product development. 

Phil: The first model of the sensor, to be called the Canary, is still in development, but hopefully those who need to avoid gluten won't have to wait too much longer:

Shireen: The product right now, we're in optimization mode, we're developing and optimizing the technology  data and it's in beta and we are really driven to promote this as soon as possible to the market but we want to make sure we're putting out the perfect product for what the market demands. 

We're building a portable device that's enabling consumers to test their food for allergens, starting with a gluten sensor and we're enabling people to trust their food.