Re: Food Irradiation Alert - Sierra Club of Canada

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

To summarize and embellish Otto's excellent analysis:


1.  The chemical changes caused in food by the interaction of gammas with chemical bonds are qualitatively the same as, and far far less than, the chemical changes caused by ordinary cooking.  Cooking changes the physical appearance and taste of food as well as its chemical composition; irradiation does not change taste or physical appearance.  This gives you some idea of the quantitative effect.


2.  Observing cleanliness during food handling ought not to be affected by whether or not the food has been irradiated.  It is clearly possible to introduce contamination when food is handled after irradiation, but if proper food handling procedures are observed, this is minimal, and is nothing like the salmonella contamination common in raw chicken.


3.  Chemical toxins that are  produced by bacteria contaminating the food are of course not destroyed by irradiation, providing another example theat the chemical changes caused by food irradiation are minimal (I guess the Sierra Club wants it both ways).


Irradiation greatly lengthens shelf life, and can provide fresh food in places where there is no refrigeration.  I have never understood the basis for the hysteria about food irradiation.


Ruth 


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com