Don't trust the safety of your food in China? Baidu says it has the answer.

The Chinese search-engine giant on Wednesday rolled out a so-called set of "smart chopsticks," known as Kuaisou in Chinese, that it says can detect oils containing unsanitary levels of contamination.

At the company's annual technology conference, Baidu CEO Robin Li gave a brief introduction of the new product, which he called "a new way to sense the world."

"In the future, via Baidu Kuaisou, you'll be able to know the origin of oil and water and other foods--whether they've gone bad and what sort of nutrition they contain," Mr. Li said in a speech Wednesday.

A video posted by the company shows how to use the product, which is linked with a smartphone app. In one experiment, the chopsticks were shown being swirled in olive oil, with the smartphone subsequently displaying a "good" reading. In another, the chopsticks registered a "bad" reading after being submerged into recycled cooking oil.

In recent years, China has been rocked with scandals involving everything from toxic milk to glow-in-the-dark pork. Earlier this month, a cook at a hotel in the tourist town of Hangzhou was put on trial for painting food with "inedible pigment" to make it look more appealing.

According to Baidu, the chopsticks measure the freshness of cooking oil. The chopsticks also will be able to measure PH levels and temperature and calories.

A price tag for the chopsticks hasn't yet been announced, and the company said the product isn't yet ready for mass production.

Baidu has mimicked products previously pioneered by Google, including its own homegrown answers to Google Glass and Google's driverless cars. But in inventing the "smart chopstick," there's no doubt it has produced a product with decidedly Chinese characteristics.

-- Yang Jie