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Re: AW: Food Irradiation devil's advocate
Dear Franz, once again a splendid answer. I was
playing devil's advocate to address what we may hear
in the future - it will probably get worse if you
wash your chicken with chrolinated water -Disinfection
by-products. I two enjoy an over easy egg!
BUT, SERIOUSLY, this may become a a nuisance argument
to which people will respond. I too think it crazy
not to wash your hands after handling one' feast.
Tom
--- Franz Schoenhofer <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>
wrote:
>
>
> -----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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