The Bacon Bar + An Even Smarter Smartphone

I thought the bacon craze was over.

It looks like the folks in Huntington Beach California disagree. The Saint Marc Pub Café, Bakery and Cheese Affinage, a 7,000 square foot restaurant where there are no waiters and you just order from iPads, has opened its “bacon bar.” Quite possibly the first in the nation! Imagine 11 signature flavors of bacon 'buy' the slice -- including flavors like: Nueske's wild cherry bacon, garlic parmesan bacon, apple pie bacon, paprika Slanina bacon, and coffee-rubbed bacon. One hitch, you can only get these delicacies to go at the store’s very own bacon bar door. Prices range from $1.50 for a flavor like peppered country bacon  to $3.50 a slice for the logwood double cut. Or English style Back Bacon. And if you really want to clog those arteries, Saint Marc offers over 100 different cheeses as well.

An Even Smarter Smartphone

Not to be outdone on the bacon front,  a 24-year-old food scientist at the University of Copenhagen, Bhaskar Mitra, shared with Treehugger.com two of his latest inventions. The first a bacon-flavored cracker – no big deal you say? – it changes color when dipped in sauce. 

But it’s his other food invention that might just change the world: A smartphone cover that can test water as well as test and treat contaminated liquid food.

It is basically a thick piece of cardboard with two key components: a UV lamp and a blue filter that covers the lens. You scan your food using your smartphone’s camera, in near-darkness and under blue light, and then an app that Mitra has developed reveals anything that shouldn't be there – from impurities such as glass or sand to potentially dangerous microorganisms like listeria and cholera. Then you use the UV lamp to zap any bacteria, which is a common way to kill harmful microorganisms.

No word on when either of his inventions will come to market.