Re: food irradiation stuff (radiation biology lesson?)

[Ruth Weiner <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

I am not a biologist by any means, but for me a tomato or carrot or chicken 
breast that is for sale in the grocery or vegetable stand is not LIVING.  It 
isn't breathing (no respiration), if it's a plant it isn't photosythesizing (I 
think), and it isn't metabolizing.  When an apple maggot, for example, is 
irradiated it is killed, but it doesn't disappear.  In a sterile apple, it 
probably won't even disintegrate.  

Plants are grown from seeds that germinate, not single cells.  The seeds are 
dormant when they are dry.  Plants can also be grown from fresh cuttings that 
have the respiratory and photosynthetic mechanisms more or less intact. If you 
remove seeds from a tomato and plant the deseeded tomato in the ground and water
it, trust me, it won't grow a tomato plant. Also, you can't grow a chicken or 
produce a chicken egg from a "cutting" (a wing, say) because the chicken is a 
much more highly differentiated organism than a tomato plant.  One can, of 
course, clone single cells, but not by putting them in the ground and watering 
them.

As I said, I am far from a competent biologist, but I do garden and cook and I 
can observe what goes on. Where is these folks' common sense?

Clearly my own opinion and no one else's

_Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
Transportation Systems Department
Sandia National Laboratories
Mail Stop 0718
P. O. Box 5800
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718
505-844-4791
505-844-0244 (fax)
____________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: food irradiation stuff (radiation biology lesson?)
Author:  Chasmig@aol.com at hubsmtp
Date:    2/16/98 10:09 PM


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