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| Yes | 33% | 26 votes | Total: 78 votes | |
| No | 67% | 52 votes |
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Add to FavoritesYes, of course, why would you want to die of bacteria and viruses that you can irradicate?
Food Irradiation is safe and effective.
The level of energy used for food irradiation affects only live organisms such as bacteria, insects, and protozoa that may be present, significantly reducing the chances of food-borne illness. Because harvested meat is no longer "living," there is no effect on the meat's appearance, taste, or nutritive value. The food never touches a radioactive substance; therefore, it does not retain any energy waves or radioactive residues.
Irradiation extends the shelf life of certain fresh foods by attacking the proteins that regulate ripening, aging, and spoiling; thereby inhibiting sprouting and mold growth. This means irradiated fruits and vegetables can be picked vine-ripe and still be fresh, nutritious, and colorful when marketed.
Irradiation was previously approved in the U.S. for spices, fruits, grains, vegetables, pork (trichina control), and poultry. A petition to irradiate seafood is pending. The technology is more commonly used outside the U.S. Irradiated foods are commercially available in 28 countries.
The technology has been endorsed as a method of enhancing food safety by FDA, USDA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Public Health Service, U.S.
Army, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, the American Medical Association, the American Dietetic Association, and the Institute of Food Technologists. In addition, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the World Health Organization, and the Codex Alimentarius Commission support the use of irradiation to preserve the wholesomeness of food.
Where are we now?
Currently there are about 40 irradiation facilities in the U.S., mostly for medical instruments and supplies such as intravenous fluids, gowns, and drugs. Certain consumer items also are irradiated such as contact lenses, cookware, and baby products. Although some universities are testing various types of food irradiators, there are few facilities in the U.S. approved for commercial food irradiation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees the construction and operation of all irradiation facilities.
USDA is now preparing proposed rules for irradiating red meats. These rules will cover procedural details such as temperatures, dosage, and record-keeping and labeling requirements. The National Food Processors Association (NFPA) has petitioned USDA to eliminate the requirement for irradiated food to carry the "radura" symbol and label statement. NFPA believes this labeling is unwarranted for a technology that has been proved safe, and fears consumers might view it as a message of warning rather than reassurance.
Key Facts
o Each of the FDA-approved types of ionizing radiation for foods-gamma rays, x-rays, and electron beam-has advantages and disadvantages such as efficiency, penetration of the food item, processing speed, and cost of construction and operation of the facility.
o The radiation dose can be varied depending on the desired results. Relatively low doses are sufficient to control food borne pathogens and preserve freshness. (Foods irradiated at this level are not sterile; therefore they must be properly refrigerated, handled, and cooked the same as non-irradiated foods.) Higher doses of radiation can sterilize foods for specific purposes, such as for astronauts and for patients in nursing homes and hospitals whose immune systems are weakened.
o Food can be irradiated when fresh or frozen, whole or packaged.
o The increased cost for irradiated ground beef is estimated to be about 1 to 5 cents/lb. Benefits to retailers and consumers may offset this cost. According to Food
Technology magazine (January 1998), "When informed of the benefits of irradiation, consumers are willing to purchase irradiated foods, even at higher cost." Retailers also benefit from reduced spoilage and reduced liability risk.
In various test markets and in the four U.S. retail stores that continuously offer irradiated foods, consumer acceptance has been high, particularly when education on the technology precedes the supermarket choices.
Learn more about this author, John Graham.
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No
Let's assume that irradiation in and of itself is completely harmless. Let's assume that the procedure would not alter the nutritional qualities or the taste of food. Let's assume that it would not create a disincentive for vendors to clean and sort their produce, so that next time you buy a bag of lettuce it will come with perfectly irradiated bugs and worms in it. Let's admit that salmonella poisoning is terrible and potentially deadly. Let's ask ourselves: putting all these issues aside, should produce be irradiated? The answer is still a resounding "no", for reasons that follow.
Completely sanitizing our environment and our bodies sounds at first blush like a good idea, but it comes at a terrible price - namely, weakening our immune systems and thus, ironically, rendering us more susceptible to infection. Humans actually do need exposure to microorganisms in order to build up healthy immune responses. Reduced exposure means a weaker immune system and consequently, a greater susceptibility to infection.
When I was a first-grader in the early 1980's, I could count on one hand the number of classmates who had allergies, none of which were medicated. The condition itself seemed merely like getting a bit of a flush after eating chocolate, or spending the month of May occasionally sneezing. "Asthma" was one of those things that old people had. Today, some forty percent of children between the ages of 6 and 18 take regular prescription medication, most of it for allergies (in other words, their allergies are debilitating enough that they have to be medicated); and among American adults, people who aren't violently allergic to at least something seem to be a vanishing breed. Meanwhile, the rates of asthma are skyrocketing among young children.
These problems and a whole host of others - including the proliferation of drug-resistant "superbugs" - are traced right back to our relentless abuse of antibiotics, disinfecting household cleaning products, and, I am sad to say, irresponsible vaccination practices. There is now good reason to suspect, also, that the growing rate of neurological and developmental problems in young children is attributable to auto-immune responses triggered by overzealous immunization; which, if true (and it likely is, at least in part) means that we trade some easily treatable and rarely fatal childhood infections for life-long disabilities that are both stigmatizing and extremely expensive to "manage".
Additionall y, not all bacteria are bad for us. Like other animals, we evolved to have symbiotic relationships with certain types of microorganisms, and killing those microorganisms inevitably leads to serious health problems - one of which, it now seems, is obesity.
And thus, as we are only beginning to hear warnings about the cavalier use of antibiotics and the dangers inherent in washing hands with antibacterial soap, I am surprised that the proposal to irradiate produce has not brought into the discussion the most obvious dangers of such a practice - that is, a significant reduction in our exposure to microorganisms.
The sterilization of our environment is a vicious cycle: since we become less able to combat infection, increasingly greater efforts have to be made to render our environment even more sterile, which in turn makes our immune systems weaker still. Recently, I watched a documentary about a pig farm. Over the past several decades, ordinary commercial pigs have been raised in increasingly more sterile environments, and as a result, current populations are so extremely susceptible to infection, that workers have to wash and scrub themselves head to toe before entering the pen. I pray that we humans do not end up having to live like those pigs a few generations hence. Unless stopped, humanity's obsessive crusade against microorganisms will force us into space suits and plastic bubbles a lot sooner than global warming, industrial emissions, or the depleted ozone layer.
Learn more about this author, Redisca.
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