>>Though (warning: heavy thread drift next 2km) of all the CSI machinery, I'd really love to have the tricorderly anything analyzer, so I could just buy a smaller package of something, see on the spot if it contains any of the aspartame, heavy metals, estrogen, GMO proteins, refined axle grease and other lubricants, corn syrup (with or without mercury) etc etc, then if I'm satisfied, go buy two large packs, if not, blacklist the item and throw into nearest waste basket.
>>
>>Now that would revolutionize shopping...
>
>OTOH you could just move to Europe and stop moaning. I could take you to any shops
>
>I never buy food with crap in it.

Neither do I, not knowingly. But with the regulations here (and I guess, with codex alimentarius, even worse in the EU) they publish less and less on the labels. Here, they use the 4px font to list ingredients, and then that's without quantities. Whatever happened to half-fat cheese? You have to recalculate back from serving size, percentage of your daily needs (which were published who knows where, google it out if you can) into the actual percentage of fat in the cheese. And with all the additives, knowing the quantity would mean something - the difference between normal intake, medication and poisoning is in the dosage. Drink 50l of water and you get a dihydrogen oxyde poisoning :).

So a gadget like that would just enable me to actually know what I'm bying.

> , farmers markets etc.

Do real farmers sell there? I've heard they're now minority even at home - it's resellers everywhere. And what I saw here on the farmers' market, and even on the road (rt 168 in North Carolina) was the same pale pink tomatoes as in the grocery, same price as in the grocery, and fresh as can be - with a dozen freezer trailers behind the tent roaring with their generators. Too bad I ran out of batteries in my camera, I would have posted it somewhere.