How AUB labs help keep Lebanese safe as they eat

AUB’s Laboratories for the Environment, Agriculture and Food (LEAF), directed by Associate Professor Mohamad Abiad of the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, explains how the labs play a national role well beyond the university campus. They regularly sample and test food, water, soil, and air samples to identify dangers and affirm the safety of the many elements that ultimately end up inside our bodies. They now also test the grains left in the port after the 2020 explosion, to determine which could be safely consumed by humans or animals, and which can be recycled for compost, heating briquets, and other useful materials. Smuggled and untested imported food, though, remains a problem for the country.