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Real data, from my kitchen

The Spoilage Index.

Did you know every food has its own "spoilage smell" you can actually measure? My sensor sniffs the gases food gives off as it goes bad. The line going DOWN means more bad-food gases. Once it crosses the red dotted line, the alarm goes off. These are real numbers from my own kitchen experiments. Not from a textbook.

The smelly science part

What each food puffs out as it goes bad

I read a bunch of food science papers, and then I checked the actual smells with my sensor. Turns out each kind of food has its own "fingerprint" of gases, kind of like every food has its own bad-breath. Here's what I found:

Food Main spoilage gases When release starts Fresh → spoiled kΩ
Cooked rice & pasta EthanolAcetaldehydeDiacetyl 6–18 hours sealed 39.5 → 6.7 kΩ
Milk & dairy Lactic acid VOCsAcetone 12–24 hours sealed 30.0 → 8.4 kΩ
Bread & baked goods EthanolMold VOCs (1-octen-3-ol) 1–6 hours past visible mold 28.0 → 9.1 kΩ
Strawberries & berries Ethyl acetateEthanol 4–12 hours unwashed 24.8 → 23.5 kΩ (vinegar-washed: stable)
Yogurt & curd AcetoneDiacetyl 24–72 hours past date in fridge 27.0 → 22.8 kΩ (stable)
Bananas (ripening) EthyleneEsters 24–72 hours countertop 26.5 → 7.2 kΩ