For Yates, inspiration struck at a wedding.

“I usually carry these terribly uncool snack packs with me to events—it’s very glamorous,” she laughs. “But somehow that day I’d forgotten.”

When she asked a nearby waiter if the appetizers were gluten free, however, they stared blankly. “How severe is your allergy,” came the less-than-confidence-inducing response.

Yates’ choice was simple: Either starve, or eat the risotto ball in question (and spend the rest of the night worrying every stomach pain implied future devastation). Neither seemed like a great option.

“It all comes down to trust ,” says Nicole Cogan, gluten free influencer and founder of NOBREAD. “Because you, the diner, have no way of knowing what actually goes into a dish. That’s why so many people with allergies—whether gluten or not—end up eating in the same, routine restaurants… they want that peace of mind.”

Anyone with a food allergy can relate to that feeling of helplessness—something Yates wasn’t ready to accept. Then a student at MIT’s Sloan School of Business, she began ruminating on the idea of a portable device that could instantly detect gluten. Her goal? Determine whether consumers would not only shell out for such a product, but if they would be willing to test their food in public.

YATES, ZHANG AND SUNDVOR, funded by MIT and other science grants, were able to develop a product in two years. And now, after a year of testing, it’s about to hit the market.

“Much like the strip of a pregnancy test reacts to a certain hormone, our proprietary chemistry reacts to gluten,” explains Yates. “When the tiniest amount of the allergen is present in food, the antibodies in our device bind to and identify it.”

It’s as simple as this: Fill a disposable capsule ($5/ea) with a pea-sized sample of your food, screw the lid shut to grind the food, insert into the sensor and wait two to three minutes for the result to be displayed on Nima’s digital display.

“And now that we have that proprietary science, it can be extrapolated to just about any protein-based dietary restriction,” she finishes. “We have plans to release capsules that detect nuts, dairy… eventually, we’ll even have ones custom tailored to individual diets—say, a capsule looking for asparagus, nuts and salt.”