Irradiated food

[MJW]

tell me why it is safe (or not)

[TZ]

1. Kills off the potentially harmful microbes

And such small doses of radiation won't hurt anybody.
A couple of other reasons why I think irradiated food is good: tomatoes, spinach, and peppers..all veggies that had or were suspected of salmonella outbreaks.

Edit: here is an informative and highly entertaining discussion of this topic awhile back..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=592557

zombie bacteria....:rofl:

[MJW]

4. thanks , I just wanted to get my facts straight before I sounded off to my niece

Zombie bacteria??:yourock:

now THAT is some scary shit!!!! (literally)

[cosmik debris]

5. Irradiated food gives NO dose to one who eats it.

There is no radiation attached to the food.

It is in no way radioactive.

There is no radiological health issue related to irradiated food except for the people who do the irradiation and there are built in safeguards to protect the employees.

[TZ]

6. Sorry my bad.

Did you read that thread though? I think you will find it highly entertaining to say the least.

[cosmik debris]

7. which thread?

I have a very low threshold for woo in the field of radioactivity.

I got a degree in Health Physics and worked in the field of environmental remediation for radium contaminated sites.

I generally find that the fear of radiation is ten times worse than the fear of big pharma. And just admitting that remediation is possible or that radiation can be handled safely proves that I am a tool of the devil. So I usually try not to linger in those threads. I'm always outnumbered and I just can't fight that battle too often.

[MJW]

8. I thought the thread was hilarious

I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination . I was just seeking some coherence to what I already believed from you science types

[TZ]

9. The one in my post

Its an old thread..Bornaginhooligan was HILARIOUS in it.

[cosmik debris]

10. It's all coming back to me--that was a hoot!

I guess I shoulda been there.

[Warpy]

2. You've been eating it for years

because all dried herbs and spices have used it for a couple of decades, at least, to destroy insect eggs and larvae.

My own feeling is that it beats the hell out of bug spray in my food.

[MJW]

3. thanks

My niece sent me an e mail asking me about it and i didn't know exactly what to tell her and I just wanted to get my facts straight . I knew I could depend on you guys!

[varkam]

11. From my understanding, it is perfectly safe.

You give the goodies a little burst of gamma rays that kills of anything that's alive (i.e. bacteria) but it doesn't get attached to the food. Personally, I think that the FDA should of been doing this sort of thing a long time ago.

[dropkickpa]

12. And, in a recent zombie movie

It was shown to be the only fresh produce still edible 28 days after a zombie pandemic! It's zombie apocalypse survival food!

[Orrex]

13. That's all the science I need!

Sign me up!

[dropkickpa]

14. Exactly! I saw it there and my mind was made up!

It can't be bad if it gives us good noms after zombie-acalypse!

[Odin2005]

15. It's just zapping the food with X-rays or gamma rays or other such high-energy light.

It has nothing to do with "radiation" as in "radioactivity." Unfortunately most people are too ignorant to understand that.

[cosmik debris]

16. The method is to expose the food to a source of Cobalt 60

Co60 emits a very high energy gamma ray. It is the same radiation source as the Gamma Knife which is used on brain tumors. But the geometry is different.

[MJW]

17. uninformed and stupid

are not the same thing. I was just seeking clarification so I could give my niece the correct information .

[realisticphish]

19. ignorant doesn't mean stupid

it just means one doesn't know :shrug:

[PVnRT]

18. All food is irradiated

Unless it somehow manages to go through life never getting hit by cosmic rays or ultraviolet radiation.

Tell that to the woos and watch them stutter.

[HamdenRice]

20. Safety misses the issue

It's a question of consumer choice, preference and market information. In general, in a market-based economy with properly functioning markets, each consumer is entitled to information in making his or her consumption choices. Economic theory tells us that the more information the consumer has, the better functioning is the market. One role of government is to force disclosure of accurate information by producers to consumers.

Some people don't want to eat irradiated food. That is their consumer preference. Because the food industry knows that some people have both scientific and aesthetic reasons for not wanting to eat irradiated food, the federal government has sided with the industry to prevent consumers from being allowed to know what food is irradiated and what food isn't.

Some people may prefer to eat irradiated food because they perceive it to be safer. That would be their consumer preference. Some such consumers might even think it is irrational to not want to eat irridiated food, but if so, that person would demonstrate that he or she doesn't understand economics. No economically literate person, for example, would say that car dealerships should be allowed to sell cars to consumers without the consumer knowing in advance what color the car is -- even though car color is a purely aesthetic choice and has no bearing on the safety or reliability of the car. Imagine if the government forced car consumers to purchase cars in a circumstance in which the dealer could say, "your car will be delivered next week and it will be either blue, silver-gray or bright pink."

Similarly, how do you think vegetarian, kosher and halal consumers would feel about food products in a market that denied them the right to information that would tell them whether a product has been processed with pork fat -- even if we all stipulated that the pork fat was perfectly "safe"?

In a properly functioning market in which government is playing its proper role of ensuring the maximum disclosure of information -- about things like safety was well as aesthetics -- every food consumer would know whether any particular item of food was irradiated.

There are many reasons that people don't want to eat irradiated food. As a foodie, I would prefer not to because irradiation causes changes in food that are analogous to light cooking. As someone who can spend hours searching for the very freshest vegetables, who scrutinizes the packing date of meat, who only buys ground beef from supermarkets where the beef is ground on site, and prefers to shop at the local Chinese supermarket for seafood because it is often sold alive, I would rather not eat partly cooked food without knowing it. Fresher, non-precooked food simply tastes better, and that's what I would like to spend my money on.

Moreover, there are environmental reasons for discouraging irradiation. Most environmentally minded people (as well as foodies) are trying to consume in a way that promotes fresh, local, sustainable food. Patronizing yet another industry tool (irradiation) that allows the industry to keep food on the shelves longer, and ship it longer distances, violates my consumer preferences. You may like to eat "long shelf life" and long distance irradiated food, but again, that's your personal preference.

Finally, industrial food production has a tendency to create contaminated foods, especially meats, especially because industrial scale slaughter tends to allow feces to contaminate meat, and contaminated meats to cross contaminate uncontaminated meat. The solution to this problem is to patronize smaller scale, local food producers, or producers who are simply more careful, especially in slaughter procedures. Many of us believe a part of the puzzle is stricter government enforcement of food safety procedures that prevent contamination.

Food irradiation, on the other hand, allows food producers to continue to use dangerous, sloppy food production methods, and then to kill the bacteria introduced by contamination. Would you rather eat meat that has been contaminated with animal shit and then irradiated, or meat that has never been contaminated in the first place?

Again, you may prefer the former, but many of us prefer the latter.

Lastly, irradiation raises labor justice issues. Most of us are aware that the giant food processors have atrocious labor practices, and treat food processing workers like expendable units. Just visit the rural neighborhoods around Hamden-Sidney and Rice, Virginia (the area part of my family is originally from) and you will meet hundreds of worn out, "carpel tunnelled", discarded chicken processing workers. If this is how they treat workers on the slaughter line, it is highly likely that they will not treat the sources of radioactivity safely either.

[TZ]

21. .

Okay--just don't eat anything "irradiated" by the sun either. Because you know, its a very similar process. (THe sun has teh evul UV rays!!)
Its not "radioactivity".
But I guess its okay to get E.Coli, Salmonella, Botulism and all those other wonderful micororganisms that come from dirty food, right? Hey all those people who got sick in the last Salmonella scare--it was their fault for not having good enough immune systems right?
THis has GOT to be the dumbest arguement agaisnt irradiation of food I have ever heard. AND it smacks of social darwinism!

[HamdenRice]

22. OK where to begin...

"Okay--just don't eat anything "irradiated" by the sun either. Because you know, its a very similar process. (THe sun has teh evul UV rays!!)
Its not "radioactivity"."

First of all, the type of radiation we receive from the sun is not the same as the kind or intensity of radiation used to kill bacteria and insects in food. If they were the same, then all bacteria and insects would be dead.

QED.


"But I guess its okay to get E.Coli, Salmonella, Botulism and all those other wonderful micororganisms that come from dirty food, right?"

Of course, it's not OK to get E.Coli, Salmonella, Botulism. Who said it was? Of course careful slaughter, handling and processing will do fine to avoid those nasties. And of course, irradiation is not the only way to avoid those things. Otherwise, all consumers of non-irradiated food would be sick with E.Coli, Salmonella, Botulism.

QED.

"it was their fault for not having good enough immune systems right"

Huh? Who said that? Maybe this guy?



Oh, was that Mr. Strawman?

"dumbest arguement agaisnt irradiation of food I have ever heard."

What argument? You haven't addressed a single one in my post.

"AND it smacks of social darwinism!"

What does? Your own strawman about letting people die of botulism? Please indicate precisely what clause or phrase in my post and not in your own strawman "smacks of social darwinism".

But I have to say, you are always entertaining at the least!

[cosmik debris]

23. There are at least two bits of bogus information in that post.

"Food irradiation, on the other hand, allows food producers to continue to use dangerous, sloppy food production methods, and then to kill the bacteria introduced by contamination."

The USDA rules on sanitary slaughter did not change because of the introduction of irradiation. Food producers have not been allowed to "use dangerous, sloppy food production methods" since the founding of the USDA inspection service.

"it is highly likely that they will not treat the sources of radioactivity safely either."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission controls the use of radiation sources, not the food producers. The food producers are required to hire a Radiation Safety Officer to continuously monitor all activity related to the procedure. Many redundant safeguard systems are REQUIRED for the use of radiation sources that strong. There are no progressive diseases associated with this procedure. The Co60 source is so powerful that it will destroy every epithelial cell in a human body in about 30 seconds. Unshielded exposure is fatal. That's why the NRC has such stringent safety regs.

Once again you speak with more authority than knowledge.

[HamdenRice]

24. uhhh...

"USDA rules on sanitary slaughter did not change because of the introduction of irradiation"

USDA rules changed to allow sloppy slaughter because of irradiation? Oh, so says this guy:



Food producers have not been allowed to "use dangerous, sloppy food production methods" since the founding of the USDA inspection service.

Therefore, there has never been an outbreak of fecal contaminant salmonella, right? It's not what they're allowed to do, it's what they do, as corporations are wont to do, which is obey the rules as loosely and minimally as possible. To the extent that one way they are regulated is via bacterial count, irradiation will allow contaminated meat to pass bacterial counts.

"so powerful that it will destroy every epithelial cell in a human body in about 30 seconds"

I wonder what it does to the top layer of my supermarket's rib roast? Nothing like fresh, uncooked meat, is there.

Also does that mean you disagree with all those who argue that the irradiation source is just like sunlight?

As for the rest of the paragraph, see above re: "sloppy food production methods."

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HamdenRice]

26. Of course, it's impossible to argue with someone who cannot read

As usual, your posts have rapidly deteriorated into non-sensical invective. I suggest you re-read the posts in this thread, and try to come up with something coherent.

Btw, even if one were trying to be stupid on purpose, it's certainly preferable to being helplessly and constitutionally stupid, isn't it?

How's life in Waco? Lot's of stimulating conversation available, I suppose.

[cosmik debris]

27. AHA! Your lack of response to any of my points shows I was right.

You strut and brag a lot, but when confronted, you cave in like you are just another school yard bully.

[HamdenRice]

30. No it's just that I no longer feed the you know whats

You failed to make a coherent argument. There is no refuting pure nonsennse. And the Monty Python black knight act doesn't make you "win" the argument.

Btw, why don't you tell us a little about the intellectual environment down there in Waco?

[cosmik debris]

31. Oh come on now, we've been through this before

You have used up all your tricks.

1. Change the subject.
2. Blame others.
3. Use insults.
4. Declare victory.

You really need to learn some new tricks

[mr blur]

28. Ooo it's got a pic! Sweet! Don't you have anyone else to play with?

[cosmik debris]

29. He would play with his friends...

if he had any.

Even his imaginary friends won't play with him anymore.

[jberryhill]

32. Well just think about it....

You are applying RADIATION to FOOD that might induce CHEMICAL CHANGES in it and....

Oh, hang on, I have to get my brownies out of the oven....

[realisticphish]

33. haha nt

[TZ]

34. And just think about all the poor herbivores

out grazing on their irradiated grass..TEH HORROR TEH HORROR...:rofl:

[realisticphish]

35. while being irradiated themselves

what a shame :(

[salvorhardin]

36. I just posted something in the Health forum that you might find useful

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x44258

[JitterbugPerfume]

37. thanks

that is very concise and useful I LOVE the science nerds at DU:loveya: