Re: Consumers Endorse Irradiated Meat in Florida; Food...

["ruth_weiner" <ruth_weiner@email.msn.com>]

The completely spurious argument that irradiation allows unsanitary food
processing and packing conditions is a drum that the anti-nuke people have
been beating for some time, and it even showed up in Consumer Reports (yes,
I wrote to them about it and got no answer).  It's also one of those
arguments that combating with the truth doesn't seem to help.  I hate to
invoke legal action, but I hope that some food irradiator brings a lawsuit
against this kind of defamation.  That may be the only way to stop it.

Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Algutifan, Elizabeth K. (ELB) <elb@bechteljacobs.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thursday, August 03, 2000 6:20 AM
Subject: RE: Consumers Endorse Irradiated Meat in Florida; Food...


>Upon reviewing Public Citizen's web site yesterday, I'd say it's them. And
I
>believe it is because, like STAR and other similar environmentalist groups,
>their agenda is the future elimination of all things nuclear (as if that
>were even possible; these groups never bring up nuclear medicine). They are
>totally one-sided on this issue - for example, one of their pages is
labeled
>"Food Irradiation Means Filthy Food." And like other non-nuclear activists,
>they tend to cite very old (most are more than 20 years old) studies in
>making their arguments. If I were an otherwise uninformed citizen learning
>about irradiated food for the first time from www.citizen.org, I would want
>to place plenty of distance between myself and the grocery stores that sell
>it. They tell us, for instance, that irradiation can lead to "meat that
>smells like a wet dog..." (Rodney, did that burger you ate a couple of
weeks
>ago from Schwan's smell like a wet dog? I doubt it.)
>
>Something else they mentioned, that I found really disgusting, warrants a
>little discussion, although maybe not on Radsafe: "Irradiation does nothing
>to remove the feces, urine, pus, vomit, and tumors often left on beef,
>chicken, and lamb as the result of filthy and inhumane slaughterhouse
>conditions." Sounds like one of the basic vegetarian arguments against
>consumption of meat. Irradiation or no irradiation, if I were 16 and more
>impressionable, upon reading this statement I'd probably swear off meat
>forever. Now, I don't know a lot about slaughterhouses here in the USA, but
>is it normal to find cattle excrement etc. on grocery store meat products?
>What about in the dairy aisle? If this were really a problem, wouldn't we
>all be vegetarians by now or demanded the meat industry clean up their act?
>
>Just another example of scare tactics to woo the unsuspecting public to
>their side.
>
>Elizabeth Algutifan, CHP
>algutifane@bechteljacobs.org
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Bob Flood [SMTP:bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU]
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 2:06 PM
>> To: Multiple recipients of list
>> Subject: Re: Consumers Endorse Irradiated Meat in Florida; Food...
>>
>> >AUBURNDALE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2000--Several Florida retail
>> outlets
>> >continue to report stronger than expected sales of irradiated fresh
>> ground
>> beef.
>> >Store officials at DeLoach's Meat Market in Lakeland and Stuart's Finer
>> Foods in Stuart
>> >say their only problem is keeping the product in stock.
>>
>> >WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Two Florida grocers halted sales of irradiated meat
>> due
>> >to lack of consumer interest, which resulted in paltry sales. DeLoach's
>> Meat
>> >Market in Lakeland and Stuart's Fine Foods in Stuart decided to stop
>> selling
>> >experimental food products to their customers just days after sales
>> began.
>>
>> Without fear of contradiction, I can confidently state that BOTH of those
>> stories can't be true. Both may be untrue, but both cannot be true.
Wonder
>> who's lying? And why?
>> ============================
>> Bob Flood
>> Dosimetry Group Leader
>> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
>> bflood@slac.stanford.edu
>>
>>
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