Food Irradiation

[Gerald Laurence <aduchem@wantree.com.au>]

You wrote:
>food irradiation.  I could not find any credible sources
>claiming that the color, odor or taste of the raw meat
>would be affected, as is claimed in the recently posted
>article.  Does anyone know of any valid, scientific data
>which would indicate that color, odor or tase are affected?
Concerns about taste etc are called "organoleptic effects" and certainly occur.
For example, irradiation of fatty acids ("fats") in the presence of air
produces JUST the same oxidation products as leaving the fat in a warm
place (rancid taste & odor, etc). So fatty foods need to be irradiated
under anaerobic conditions to avoid acceptability problems. Red meat
darkens because of the oxidation-reduction reactions involving the
haemoglobin. HUGE doses can produce very unpleasant material as the
secondary structure breaks down, amino acids become amines (odor), etc etc.
But this is normally only at doses far more than needed even fro sterilization.
Although now a little old, the WHO report "Safety & Nutritional Adequacy of
Irradiated Food", (Geneva, 1994) is a good starting point for the subject
of food irradiation.

Gerald Laurence
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