Re: Food Irradiation Alert - etc.

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 12/6/02 8:05:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, mark.hogue@srs.gov writes:


> I wasn't quoting anybody's anti-nuke propaganda. It just seems logical that there's a trade-off in fast production and hygiene. If the latter can be solved with a quick trip through the irradiator, won't the faster production become the more competitive behavior? So if a producer decides to be conservative and slower with better hygiene, pretty soon that producer can't compete. If this is 'baseless,' please explain how you think the market response would work



In 1997, the FDA food processing regulations were tightened by orders of magnitude, largely in response to pressure from groups like Consumer Reports.  As the magazine points out, salmonella in chicken dropped from 75% of their samples to 12%, which is pretty remarkable.  I'm afraid that regulation is necessary for exactly the reason you cite: a producer is going to keep production time (and costs) down unless forced by regulation to do otherwise.  It's the regulation that provides the "level playing field" for the market: if all food producers have to meet  certain sanitation standards, then they will.  The regulations not only set standards, but specify processing methods and testing methods.  (We saw the same thing in air pollution control, by the way.)


Also, I think American consumers will not buy obviously dirty and deteriorated stuff, and the first case of food poisoning or any illness due to contamination is going to affect the market anyway.  My own experience as a consumer (and I actually had a job in a supermarket one summer during college) is that the markets are quick to acknowledge any spoiled food and give you credit for it -- this happened to me just last week: I got a wrapped sample of cheese that from its odor was clearly old, and the supermarket gave me a free replacement (it was expensive French cheese, too).  


I had only heard the charge about irradiation being a method to allow processors to get away with marketing dirty unsanitarily processed food from anti-nuke sources (like Sierra Club) but it seems to have become, like so much radiation hysteria, part of common cuurent wisdom, and one can, as you have, make a reasonable rationale for it.  I am sure Franz wasn't quoting anyone either.  


Ruth


  

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com



Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com