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After the recent salmonella outbreak killed as many as eight people and sickened more than 500, some are wondering whether it's time for more widespread irradiation of food.
Irradiation. Doesn't have a positive ring. More typically associated with words like "cancer" and "Chernobyl" than words like "peanut butter" and "spinach." But the FDA, along with a number of medical professionals and food scientists, say irradiation may be the best way to prevent food-borne illness outbreaks, and, despite the scary associations, it's really and truly safe.
Irradiation of food involves brief exposure to gamma rays or X-rays to kill bacteria or other pathogens. It does not leave any traces of radiation in food. But some say it destroys nutrients and merely serves as a cover-up for shoddy sanitation practices in food factories. Others say it's a useful and vastly underutilized tool that could prevent some 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations due to food poisoning each year. Right now irradiation is approved by the FDA for spinach, iceberg lettuce, meat and several kinds of imported produce, but is rarely used.
What do you think? Should we be irradiating the food supply or not?
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2-03-2009 @12:43PM Pat said... I like to buy the irradiated ground beef when it's available. It means I can cook a burger to medium-rare without worry. Once some well-meaning guy came up to me as I was picking it up, saying in a horrified whisper "That's been irradiated!". People hear the word and freak out. More science, less fear.
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2-03-2009 @12:58PM jim said... The grossness of irradiated food has nothing to do with the radiation, and everything to do with the acceptability of poop in irradiated food.
Food producers are excited about irradiation because it allows them to be much less concerned with keeping their product free from contamination.
It's time we start focusing on keeping our food free from poop, and stop relying on ways to make poop less harmful.
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2-03-2009 @1:52PM mickie.whitley said... You want to eat irradiated food. Fine. Go right ahead. I won't stop you.
You want to irradiate food and not tell us. Not kosher. You are hindering my ability to make my own decisions and you do not have the right to make those decisions for me. I do not give you that right so you'll take it by force instead.
Want to MAKE all of us adhere to singular food choices regardless of our own personal choice.... Over my dead body. Yes, even if it comes to that. Or rather it will come to that with the crap (yay, jim) being fed to us under the name of food. Not happenstance that chronic disease has skyrocketed alongside the growth of the commercialized food industry. Learn to add, people. Too many pathogens and not enough nutrition. Yeah, they are the people to trust with something as controversial as irradiation.
Read what happens in the non-industry funded studies. While you're at it, read what happens to microwaved food.
Food borne pathogens? Not controllable with a food industry as large as ours; quit with the idea that it is, with "more regulation". It's a monopoly on food and we are no longer the owners of our own supply and small safe food providers are going out of business under the burden of regulation while the big-boys, with their yearly recalls, thrive. I'll live by my food decisions, but I'll be damned if I live by yours over my better judgment.
You, and I mean "you all who would dictate to me what I may or may not eat up to and including the feds" collectively and not the writer of Slashfood specifically, want to let someone else make your food decisions...go right ahead.
Leave me out of it and leave me a way TO opt out of it.
Damn, dictating food, dictating who we can speak to or not or buy from, dictating where we invest, dictating which companies live and which are killed off, dictating what healthcare is allowed, dictating how much racket we must pay each year to keep the IRS goons from throwing us in jail….
Dictating....
damn people, learn to add.
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2-03-2009 @2:04PM Spoonman said... If poop's not harmful, then what's the harm? :)
Seriously, though, I generally by the irradiated stuff myself. It tastes the same, and is safer than the other stuff. I think if a producer can afford to irradiate the meat they sell, they probably aren't some half-assed operation that uses poop as "filler". I'd be more worried about the mom & pop shops that have no quality control, and generally lower standards.
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2-03-2009 @1:42PM Richard Ahlquist said... I will wave a magic wand and clear you food of all deadly bacteria! Of course since you take all these cleanliness steps to limit bacteria like Jim said, you wont have to do that anymore because all the bacteria can be killed. More insect and animal feces can be tolerated because of the dead sterile nature of the food product.
Why, you wont hardly ever have to hear about things like salmonella again since the way we detect it is usually by taking a sample of the food product and culturing (growing) a sample in a lab.
Of course since the data is so perfect we have nothing to worry about, after all there is no controversy about any food or health subject such as fluoride, or high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners etc.
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2-03-2009 @3:10PM mick said... " I'd be more worried about the mom & pop shops that have no quality control, and generally lower standards."
and you base this premise on.....? Small producers have to follow the same legislature as the big boys.
That sounds like something you just pulled out of your head. Cite please. Small producers are more concerned about each and every customer because each one counts to the bottom line--they don't deal in "millions". Small producers can watch their live stock, produce and production lines carefully.
Some small producers of beef were testing EVERY COW for madcow and the feds ordered them to cease and desist because whereas it was not an undue burden for them, the large companies couldn't operate under the same stricture thereby sued to make it ILLEGAL to test EACH cow. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, L.L.C. v. Department of Agriculture, 2008 WL 3980533 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
http://www.masstortdefense.com/2008/09/articles/dc-circuit-upholds-usda-ban-on-additional-mad-cow-testing-so-far/
Oh yeah, that makes me feel so safe. Back up your statements. I will continue to trust the humans whose own livlihood depends on my staying healthy.
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2-03-2009 @3:31PM christopher said... All of the above in favor of the non-irradiation crowd. In addition I think we will find that the beneficial microbes in our food (lots more than the bad ones) play a more vital role in our health and survival than we think.
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2-03-2009 @5:38PM hbaumann said... I don't want irradiated food.
The food industry needs to clean up it's act not cover it up. Plain and simple as that.
If the radiation kills harmful bacteria then it definitely kills healthy bacteria as well and possibly nutrients. The standard american diet is already pretty bad, don't mess up the rest of it.
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2-03-2009 @5:59PM doodoolemonque said... I'm for stem cell research and irradiation. I'm for science. Yes, we may learn that there are drawbacks to irradiation, and by so doing, we will learn how to improve the process. That's the way science works, and I'm for it, especially when it continues to benefit mankind. Thanks, and a tip of the Hatlo hat to scientists everywhere.
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2-04-2009 @10:26AM mick said... "Yes, we may learn that there are drawbacks to irradiation, and by so doing, we will learn how to improve the process."
Fine. Then make double damn sure that the procedure is not mandatory on all food and that those that are irradiated are clearly labeled so us in the general population are not involuntarily volunteered to be science's guinea pigs while they figure out whether or not this is safe while they are "improving the process".
I've read enough studies. By the way, you all realize that this controversy isn't just ours/USA's? Europe is highly skeptical and has banned the practice in many instances. We are the only ones touting the miracles of irradiation. Or rather, our large multi-tentacle food supply corporations, like Cargill and Monsanto, are its biggest cheerleaders and are the same running roughshod over the third-world food supply.
I don't want to be on the same side of ANYTHING Monsanto. If I could avoid buying ANY of their products I would but multi-headed hydras are difficult to evade.
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2-05-2009 @7:45AM George said... Should we? No.
My reasoning? Ok, it's simple. Prove to me that irradiating food is completely safe and healthy for the consumer and the environment(considering at least the extra power involved for the irradiation process), and that it doesn't adversely affect the food at all. Ok, now prove that doing nothing to the food is completely safe and healthy for the consumer and the environment, and that it doesn't adversely affect the food at all.
Simple. Don't touch my food. I don't even like the kid working in the produce department touching my food. It skeeves me out.
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