food irradiation stuff (radiation biology lesson?)

[Chasmig@aol.com]

Hi radsafers!

I am getting the initial feedback to the article I wrote for the food co-op.
The gal that does the editing called me gave me some feedback from the folks
that have read it. My little piece is getting some strong reactions!
Apparently everyone wants some references, no prob.  There is a question she
asked me, though, that has me kind of stumped. It is a common query I hear.

The question expressed concern about "living" food, fruits and veggies. How is
it that radiation alters bacteria and parasites to the point of  death but
does not significantly affect the living veggies?  A complete carrot plant can
be grown from a single cell. 

I mentioned how cellular repair mechanisms have more time to act in less
active cells, how no radiolytic compounds have been identified that do not
also exist naturally, how biological molecules exist mainly as huge long-chain
polymers broken down by digestion, and how the dna, of little or no
nutritional value, was the area primarily affected. I tried to explain how
very minor conformational changes in dna affect its proper function without
giving a gentics lecture. The changes are mainly conformatinal and not
compositional.... how do you explain this to someone who has not had organic
chemistry? We break the stuff down into pieces parts when we digest it,
anyway. 

How can you say that radiation kills bacteria but does not affect the food "in
so many words", without it sounding like an article of faith? Why doesnt the
DNA damage to the bacteria also damage the DNA of the food? I guess the hard
part is explaining why damaged veggie DNA doesnt matter. I suppose it would
account for the slight loss of vitamins.

I guess its the old "prove that a ghost doesnt exist" problem again. 

Enough rambling.

Charles Migliore
Chasmig@Aol.com