RE: AW: AW: Food Irradiation Alert - Sierra Club of Canada

["Rob Gunter" <rgunter@SEC-TN.COM>]

Greetings All,



In fact, wasn't there a recent story about genetically engineered foods

being prohibited from receipt in a country facing famine.  It seemed that

part of the rationalization was that if it wasn't good enough for Europeans

then (real) people should starve to death despite it.



That is one of the real dangers in a lot of these arguments.  When a big

deal is made over things for which there is no demonstrable effect,

mechanism, or way to measure it, will people blindly follow the "advice"

even to the death of 10's of thousands!?



What precisely is the problem with irradiated food?  Can you tell the

difference between irradiated and unirradiated food?  Exactly how much risk

is involved (calculating this should be easy as LNT)?  We know the Q for

free radicals and other products, how do they compare with the background

levels of these same agents by the time you get the food?



I consider myself open to discussion on this.  Numbers please.....



Rob



Robert J. Gunter, CHP



>             Food irradiation is ok, if it helps peoples to escape famine.

It

> is a crime, if it is intended to maximise profits of world wide acting

> companies.



	--A large fraction of the food in poor countries like India is

lost duue to spoilage; extending shelf life thus avoids famine and

starvation.

	--Americans and Europeans get very little tropical fruit because

of spoilage in transit. Irradiation to extend shelf life would solve this

problem.

	--Fishing boats could remain at sea much longer if they would

avoid spoilage of their catch by irradiation.



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