AW: Food Irradiation devil's advocate

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

Von: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu]Im Auftrag von M Nivas

Gesendet: Freitag, 06. Dezember 2002 19:37

An: Rob Gunter; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Betreff: Food Irradiation devil's advocate





To All,





When I go to Wright Patterson flight museum I purchase

some freeze dried "Astronaut food" its Good!



Astronaut food is also sterilized  by gamma

irradiation.



What about the foodstuffs being cross-linked into

formation of carcinogens. I routinly crosslinked

cellular materials, example:  proteins etc. with UV

and Betas



It seems only natural that food would be cross linked

using gamma irradiation, thus producing carcinogens!

Sure most of it goes right through, but it still is

enough to destroy and crosslink proteins into

carcinogens! Otherwise the bacteria, viruses,

mycoplasmas etc. would not DIE

-----------------------------------------



Tom,



It seems interesting that you enjoy freeze dried and gamma-ray sterilized

astronaut food - I prefer by far a juicy T-bone steak, rare or at most

medium, with special potatoes, if possible with lettuce and other

vegetables. All of course with all the spice of salmonella, Cs-137 and

whatever dangers biology and nuclear can offer...... I cook eggs still only

four to five minutes, depending on size and do not care for the 1 in ten

million chance to ingest some salmonella. But I assure you that I wash my

hands after preparing chicken for the oven - I cannot imagine that anybody

would  n o t  do it!!!



After this mouth watering introduction, let us proceed to science: My

limited knowledge of radiation chemistry - from lectures about thirty years

ago - tells me, that the destruction of molecules in food is affected by the

radicals, formed by radiolysis of water, the principal one being the

HO2-radical. This is known to be very oxidizing, which results in breakdown

of molecules. This is reflected for instance in the formation of alkanes

from fat in meat, which is a very good indicator, that meat has been

irradiated and which is used routineously for detection of irradiation.

(These facts are known only since a few years and were not known thirty

years ago.) Therefore I am rather sceptical, that gamma-irradiation would

form any cross-linked proteins, but I would not rule out that carcinogens

could be formed under the influence of the produced radicals. Carcinogens

seem to be certain chemicals, but I do not know of any ones consisting of

proteins. Of course I have no idea about the effects of UV and betas.



----------------------------------------------



So playing devil's advocate - Irradiation of

foodstuffs

will form some carcinogens.  I know what the first

answer would be "one cooks food and forms carcinogens"



---------------------------------------------



This answer is appropriate and justified. Think of smoking, think of

grilling, think of frying and how many carcinogens, starting from the well

known benzpyrenes are formed! But thinking of smoked reindeer meat, grilled

fish etc. is again mouth-watering, no matter how many carcinogens it may

contain. We call it in Europe "quality of life", which means that we accept

that our life may be shortened statistically by a few minutes, hours or even

days, as long as we enjoy life and food, whether it contains (potential)

carcinogens or not.



Best regards,



Franz





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