Keeping bugs out of breakfast cereal.

In the 1960s film "Mondo Cane," trendy New Yorkers are shown patronizing a restaurant that serves insects at exorbitant prices. A person need not travel to New York or pay huge sums to eat insects, indicates Barrie Kitto, a University of Texas at Austin biochemist. In fact, everyone who eats breakfast cereal probably consumes a small quantity of insect fragments every morning.

"A lot of the world eats insects as a matter of routine. It depends on your sensitivities." Nevertheless, the sensitivities of the average American do not accommodate the consumption of bugs. Primarily for this reason, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) imposes standards on grains sold as food, and inspectors are stationed at mills, bakeries, packaging plants, and other locales to ensure that no more than two insects per kilogram find their way into grain intended for humans.

The problem is that the tests for detecting insects or insect fragments are expensive, time-consuming, tedious, and sometimes inaccurate. Kitto has devised a substitute test for detecting insects that is being evaluated by the USDA for routine use. Rather than relying on the current mechanical methods of sorting grain or mixing powdered products with oil, Kitto's is a simple test in which a quantity of food product is mixed with chemicals to form a liquid. if insects or insect fragments are present, the liquid turns green. The more insects present, the greener the liquid.

"In the U.S., there are about half a dozen primary insects that can get into grain," Kitto points out. "Among the main ones are...