Radiation by Robert Peter Gale

Author:Robert Peter Gale [Gale, Robert Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-95970-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

IS IRRADIATED FOOD DANGEROUS?

It is difficult to arrive at a worldwide figure for incidence of food poisoning, but the World Health Organization estimates that more than 2 billion cases occur each year, and an estimated 2 million people die from infections of the gastrointestinal tract such as typhoid fever and cholera, many of which can be traced to bacteria in food and water. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the United States bacteria in food cause an estimated 48 million cases of food poisoning annually. Around 130,000 people are hospitalized for food-borne illnesses, and nearly 3,000 die from eating food contaminated by bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria.

Yet many people say they would rather be exposed to these bacteria than eat food that has been radiated to kill them. This fear mostly stems from the misconception that radiated food can become radioactive. The source of the gamma or X-rays used to radiate the food never comes in direct contact with the food, so the food is not made radioactive by these rays; nor does it contain extra radioactivity. (All food is normally radioactive.) It is as physically impossible for food treated with gamma rays to become more radioactive as it is for your teeth to become more radioactive after a dental X-ray. (You could make food radioactive by exposing it to neutron radiation and thereby activate sodium-24, but neutrons are never used for food radiation.)

The CDC says that 90 percent of all illnesses resulting from food-borne pathogens are caused by just 7 of the 31 that are known: Salmonella, Norovirus, Campylobacter, Toxoplasma, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria, and Clostridium. Just as pasteurizing dairy products and pressure-cooking canned foods kill germs (when done properly), exposing food to ionizing radiation kills bacteria and parasites that otherwise could make you ill. (Commercially canned foods are not guaranteed safe, as shown in the 1971 death from botulism of a man who ate tainted vichyssoise.) Whether it comes from gamma rays released by cobalt-60 or cesium-137, electron beams, or X-rays, the high energy of ionizing radiation breaks the chemical bonds that bacteria and other microbes need for growth, leaving them unable to multiply and cause food to spoil or make people ill. It allows food to stay fresh longer. Irradiated food is a staple for astronauts in space. Many brands of bottled water we drink are sterilized by UV radiations, although the label may not always say so.

Every method used to process food—including storing it at room temperature for a few hours after it is harvested—can lead to a loss of some vitamins. Sterilization using radiation, in contrast, results in loss, if any, at a level so low as to be undetectable or irrelevant. So the high dose of radiation used to increase shelf life lessens food’s nutritional value no more than cooking or freezing it does.

Groups opposed to food irradiation point out that gamma rays alter the molecular structure of the food, forming charged particles known as

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