Eleven things you may not know about food irradiation

[salvorhardin]

Here's the facts as presented by Junkfood Science. Click through to the blog post for extensive commentary.
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/08/jfs-special-eleven-things-you-may-not.html

1. Food irradiation is not a plot by the government to use up nuclear waste, cesium-137.
2. Food irradiation does not creates nuclear waste or risk a nuclear disaster.
3. Food irradiation does not make food radioactive.
4. Food irradiation has been extensively tested and shown safe.
5. Irradiated food is not new.
6. Food irradiation helps prevent food waste and spoilage, reduce the need for chemical fumigants, and can help feed more of the world’s people.
7. Food irradiation can save lives and help prevent miscarriages, congenital toxoplasmosis and other catastrophic illnesses.
8. Food irradiation can be an important aspect of food safety procedures and an effective critical control point in the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system.
9. Food irradiation can never replace existing food safety and sanitation practices, or be used to pawn bad food off onto consumers.
10. Food irradiation has minimal effects on the nutritional quality and wholesomeness of foods.
11. Food irradiation does not create dangerous cancer-causing compounds and eating it has not been shown to cause cancer.

[mike_c]

1. please don't let facts interfere with luddite FUD....

Thank you.

[mhatrw]

10. So if someone would simply like to be advised if food is fresh or irradiated,

that makes him a Luddite?

Onward science soldiers ...

[mike_c]

11. not at all....

I think being informed is always a good thing. Unwarranted fear is something different, but knowing how your food is produced and processed is essential, IMO. It's one of the requirements for making INFORMED decisions, rather than knee-jerk decisions. Sorry if I gave the impression that I meant otherwise. I was feeling a bit tongue-in-cheek.

[cboy4]

2. I think more than anything, it's safer than pesticides.

However, I don't think anyone can say with certainty irradiation is 100 percent safe.

As long as irradiated produce is labeled, just like meat and spices are .. and people have the choice to purchase organic food ... I'm not overly concerned.

[TZ]

8. And any day you could develop a lethal food allergy.

Does that mean you should give up food?
Seriously, nothing in life in 100% safe and expecting it to be so, is a bit ridiculous.

[niyad]

3. if it is so damned safe, WHY is it that we don't have to be told which of our foods are nuked?

[Warpy]

4. 12. You've been eating it for DECADES

because all dried herbs and ground spices sold in the US have been irradiated since the 80s.

Unless you grow your own, they've been zapped to destroy bacteria and insect eggs and larvae.

It's better than bug spray, you know.

[salvorhardin]

5. She covered that under #5: Irradiated food is not new

Most disposable medical devices are sterilized using radiation, as are products such as tampons, baby bottles, cosmetics, food packages, juice cartons and wine corks. But foods and spices have been safely irradiated for decades, both in the United States and at least 38 major countries in the world. ...

Irradiation of wheat and wheat flour was approved in the U.S. in 1963, and since then irradiation has been expanded to include potatoes in 1964 to inhibit sprouting, spices and seasonings in 1986 for sterilization, dehydrated and dried foods in 1986 to control insects and improve storage, pork in 1985 to kill Trichina parasites, fresh fruits and vegetables in 1985, poultry in 1990 and 1992 to reduce bacterial pathogens, meats in 1997 and 2000 to control foodborne pathogens, and eggs in 2000, according to the CDC Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases and the GAO. NASA has been irradiating foods for astronauts to consume in space since the 1970s. From Florida strawberries and onions to Hawaiian tropical fruits (papaya, rambutan, lycheese, cherimoya, irradiated produce has been safely eaten since the early 1990s.

As the 2000 GAO Congressional Report on the scientific studies on food irradiation said, about 97 million pounds of food are irradiated each year in the United States. The largest category are herbs, spices and seasonings, followed by fruits and vegetables and poultry. As toxicologist Dr. Kathryn E. Kelly noted, “we are all eating a lot of irradiated foods these days.” Never the less, only a fraction of the total amount of foods consumed that could be irradiated, is, noted the GAO.

[beam me up scottie]

6. doesn't create dangerous cancer-causing compounds and eating it has not been shown to cause cancer

Yeah but can you prove it doesn't cause cancer?




seriously, thanks for the resource, k&r

[salvorhardin]

7. Well, aside from the 100% death rate associated with irradiated food, it's completely safe

Of course, there's a 100% death rate associated with organic produce too.

[mike_c]

12. best reply I've seen all day....

Hats off!

[mhatrw]

9. 12. Irradiated food just tastes better!

Cobalt-60 is M'm' Good!

[salvorhardin]

13. Not as tasty as salmonella...

Oh come on, mhatrw. Address the arguments in the OP rather than play these silly games. Unless, of course, your knowledge of radiation is so shallow that you actually think the gamma rays given off by Cobalt-60 somehow make the food itself transmute into Cobalt-60.

And for what it's worth, I think labeling is fine. As mike_C pointed out, knowledge of how your food was produced is essential in making an informed decision.