barbaral@tekig1.UUCP (Barbara Lee) (02/21/84)
The latest issue (March 84) of American Health magazine has an interesting article about food irradiation, which is a way to extend the shelf life of food. I don't know much about the subject, other than that one article I read. I'd be interested in any thoughts/opinions you have about food irradiation.
pat@pyuxqq.UUCP (Pat M. Iurilli) (02/22/84)
Apparently this process is used not only to increase shelf life but also as
a way of killing insects hidden in the food, thereby stopping the need for
contact pesticides like EDB. Its widest use seems to be on fruit and produce.
The way it works is that the material is sent into a room on a conveyer belt
which contains a pool of water in the center. Once inside, rods of
Cobol-60 are raised from deep in the pool and the material is moved around
the room by a circular conveyer belt, first near the ceiling, then near the
floor. All scientific evidence is that this procedure is harmless, and does
not cause the material to become radioactive in any way, if you can believe
this. Remember this is the same scientific community that told mothers that
DES, Thalidomide (sp?), etc. were harmless, until all those babies were born
deformed. I see nothing wrong with nuclear harnessing for power and other
things, but not in my food! It's too soon to determine if it is indeed as
safe as advertised. Only time will tell...
Pat Iurilli Bell Communications Research Piscataway, NJ
{ihnp4,harpo}!pyuxqq!patsebb@pyuxss.UUCP (S Badian) (02/22/84)
Irradiated food has been around a pretty long time, since after WWII if I'm not mistaken. So they probably are pretty certain of its effects by now. I think they use irradiated milk in France because of its vastly improves shelf life. Unfortunately, irradiation is not for all foods. It makes certain foods look yucky and there- fore the market for them is rather small. From what I've heard an irradiated chicken will last a long time, but after you see it you may not want to eat it. Sharon Badian
hstrop@mhuxt.UUCP (trop) (02/22/84)
First of all, Cobol is a computer language, Cobalt-60 is an isotope of cobalt that is radioactive. Cobalt-60 decays by gamma emission, basically it is just an extremely hot photon. It is extremely effective at killing micro-organisms, as well as larger critters. It does NOT affect the nutritional value of the food and extensive research by both the FDA and Army has also shown that irradiation doesn't make the food radioactive or create any known carcinogens that weren't there in the first place. I for one look forward to seeing more use of irradiation. It will make backpacking meals much better and tastier. It will also result in lower levels of pesticides in the environment as a whole when widely used. Harvey S. Trop mhuxt!hstrop
ecs@inuxd.UUCP (Eileen Schwab) (02/23/84)
SCIENCE '81 had an article on irradiated food (sometime in the
fall, the October issue?). If memory serves, it stated that
irradiated food has been on the market in other countries (such
as Canada) for years and there have been no ill effects reported.
Keep your food from being outdated /\ "Some
Have it all irradiated! /V V\ like
/ ^ ^ \ it
Eileen Schwab \______/ HOT!"bcw@duke.UUCP (Bruce C. Wright) (02/24/84)
I won't bother discussing the charge that irradiated food is radioactive, that's been adequately exploded in previous articles. There *are* some health questions, however: the radiation produces some strictly *chemical* products as well. This is done primarily by providing sufficient energy (as heat?) to produce the products; in principle this could (as I understand it) be done by non-radioactive methods but isn't done in normal food processing. These are called radiolytic by-products & there is some debate as to their effects on health - and at the very least, they can in some circumstances produce an "off" taste to the food (such as a tinny taste). The last I knew (about 6 months ago), there was still considerable debate on this topic - it may be resolving itself by now. Bruce C. Wright
hutch@shark.UUCP (02/24/84)
<chomp> Open letter to Pat Iurilli - First, you probably mean cobalt-60, not Cobol-60, which would only annoy the bacteria and provide a great place for the bugs to live. All scientific evidence is that this procedure is harmless, and does not cause the material to become radioactive in any way, if you can believe this. Remember this is the same scientific community that told mothers that DES, Thalidomide (sp?), etc. were harmless, until all those babies were born deformed. I see nothing wrong with nuclear harnessing for power and other things, but not in my food! Nobody was ever told that DES, Thalidomide, etc. were HARMLESS. There were marketing concerns which tried to pass them off as SAFE. You can't blame deliberate malfeasance on the part of the pharmaceutical concerns on "the scientific community". Furthermore, it is NOT "the same scientific community" and that kind of generalization merely shows that your reaction is an emotional one (presumably against the Evil Nuke) rather than a reasoned one. Chemical and drug effects are one thing, but radiation is another. You can measure radiation EASILY. They can tell that the food isn't MORE radioactive than it started by checking it with a Geiger counter. Therefore, the only way that you would have to worry about the food being made dangerous is if it were to pick up some chemical contaminant from the conveyors. Or if quality control at the processing plant were to be shown to be inadequate. Incidentally, if you really want to be revolted, try visiting a vegetable canning plant. You will never want to eat cream style corn again, not to mention beans. The process of radiation-sterilizing food has been around for about twenty years now. I recall reading about it in sixth grade in the Weekly Reader. There has been plenty of time to discover any potential problems. None have surfaced, and radiation-strilized foods are more energy-efficient, since they don't require major refrigeration. That advantage far outweighs many other disadvantages. Hutch
brucec@orca.UUCP (Bruce Cohen) (02/24/84)
----------- I thought I'd help inject some facts into this discussion. First, irradiated foods have been around since the early '50s at least. I tasted an irradiated pork chop in, I think, 1957, and was told that it had been on the shelf for several years at that point. That pork chop was part of an Army study to determine the long-term economy and safety of irradiating foods for years of storage. Given the many years of study (not just by the Army, or just in this country) since then, I think that time has already told. Second, the FDA decision to allow the sale of irradiated food comes after a UNESCO decision that irradiated foods are safe for human consumption. The maximum radiation dose acceptable to UNESCO is 10 (that's ten) times the dose acceptable by the FDA. All the studies so far show that there is negligible danger of chemical or genetic modification of food at the doses accepted by UNESCO (100,000 rads, if you are interested). Third, it is not true that the irradiation of food will be the first mass use of isotopes outside the weapon and power industries. Medical isotopes involve tons of waste per year, much of it containers and wrappers which are easy to mistake as safe. Incidently, the irradiaters in use for food are also used to sterilize disposable medical supplies. Also, the construction industry uses a lot of cobalt-60 in weld analyzers, and other types of non-destructive test equipment. It was just such a cobalt source which was illegally dumped in a scrap heap in Mexico recently, and used to make radioactive tables. I would expect that, since food irradiation benefits nicely from economy of scale, that the sources used would be few and large, and that transportation of them would not be common. There is quite a bit more information on the operation and safety of food irradiation in the latest issue of High Technology. Bruce Cohen UUCP: ...!tektronix!tekecs!brucec CSNET: tekecs!brucec@tektronix ARPA: tekecs!brucec.tektronix@rand-relay
sanders@menlo70.UUCP (Rex Sanders) (02/26/84)
Everything I've read on the subject indicates that radioactive food is not the worry - it's the chemical changes in the food caused by the high-energy radiation blasting in. (There is some fancy name for these "byproducts", but I can't recall it now.) Basically, the same mechanism involved with producing cancer in living tissue. The main concern about these byproducts is their toxicity or carcinogenicity (whew!). The ammount and types of byproducts identified so far inidicate no danger from direct toxicity. All the studies are not yet conclusive on the cancer-causing effects, because the state of the art in detecting and evaluating these chemicals has advanced so rapidly recently - i.e. 20 years of studies are not necessarily relevant to this problem. Another thing to consider is *who* conducted the studies. I'm not referring to the usual claims of conflict of interest. The scandals surrounding several of the "independent" testing labs (IBT comes quickly to mind) indicate that healthy scepticism is warranted of any studies done by 1 or 2 labs, especially if the studies disagree. Can anyone quote studies with sources that touch on the byproducts & carcinogen problem? One more thing to consider - if the food irradiating industry has anything like the safety track record of the rest of the food industry, how many workers will suffer from improper handling of the Cobalt-60? How many shavings from those rods will fall off into the food? How will those rods be shipped and stored all over the country if this becomes a large industry? -- Rex
eugenez@azure.UUCP (Eugene Zinter) (02/28/84)
***********************
* *
* IRRADIATED FOOD *
* *
***********************
I think that most people would agree that the problem with
Irradiated food is not that is becomes RADIOACTIVE.
Rather, the problem is: What happens to the food when it
is bombarded with Gamma Rays from Cobalt-60? What changes
occur in the vitamins, enzymes, minerals, amino acids, etc?
After all, why did the organisms within the food die?
Some changes had to occur---why can't the same thing happen
to the very food we are talking about? And we haven't even
discussed the radiolytic by-products. These are things few
people (myself included) know specifically about. I do know
that the main problem with radiation exposure in human beings
is that large amounts of Singlet Oxygen are produced in the
body. This is a powerful free radical and apparently does the
major damage. According to theory, if you could produce enough,
say Super-Oxide Dismutase (SOD, a powerful free-radical
deactivator) within your body, you could withstand large amounts
of radioactive exposure. That is also why some people ingest a
lot of carrots (or a Beta-Carotene Supplement) daily for a few
weeks before summer and continuing it throughout summer weather.
The idea is to build up enough beta-Carotene in your skin so
when you sun, you won't age your skin from the Singlet Oxygen
produced from long exposure to the sun. Beta-Carotene is a
free-radical scavenger and so deactivates Singlet Oxygen. As a
result, it's supposed to cut down sunburn problems.
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There is a statement I do NOT agree with:
[pick your favorite subject] has/have been in use for over 20 years
and therefore this proves that it/they is/are perfectly safe.
Let's apply this to the newly discovered aluminum problem. After
all, wide use of aluminum in our food has been around for 50 years,
OR MORE.
Here's the sentence:
[Aluminum-based food additives] have been in use for over 20 years
and therefore this proves that they are perfectly safe.
Notice how easy it is to fill in some subject, and to even choose
some proper grammar. Most convenient.
That should prove beyond ANY DOUBT that aluminum is PERFECTLY
safe to ingest. Awwwww. Too bad someone playing with dialysis
units and dialysis patients dying mysteriously stumbled upon some
problems with aluminum within the last year or so. I mean, everyone
knew that the body eliminates all aluminum safely---oops, how
embarrassing---it's just been !recently! discovered that the body
may retain around 20% of it, storing a lot of it in the brain.
Could the experts be wrong after all these years? I mean, they
are much smarter than "common" me. I mean, what do I know---I just
go by common sense. What's all the excitement about Alzheimer's
disease? Gee, another "safe" substance blown to hell. Of course
this is all conjecture until it is thoroughly proven (like
Cigarette Smoking causing lung cancer).
You can have a lot of fun modifying the sentence:
[ X-Rays ] have been in use for over 20 years
and therefore this proves that they are perfectly safe.
[ Automobiles ] have been in use for over 20 years
and therefore this proves that they are perfectly safe.
[ Coal Tar Derivatives ] have been in use for over 20 years
and therefore this proves that they are perfectly safe.
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I realize this is being a bit facetious. And Irradiated food may
have some very useful applications. But for such an advanced
civilization, it shouldn't be that terrible of a problem to figure
out how to deliver fresh foods. Or is it of the same difficulty
as "curing" the common cold? Hmmmmmm.
And it may indeed, be safer to ingest irradiated food, rather than
barbecued/smoked meat (up to 600 cigarettes worth of Benzopyrine
per large barbecued steak!) or safer than excessive use of salt,
spices, etc. But I don't eat such things anyway, so the argument
basically doesn't apply to me.
I say, "Let those who want to ingest Irradiated food to do so."
And let those of us who DON'T want to use it to have such FREEDOM.
However, those of us who care will watch what happens, whether any
bad results come from new research or observation of populations
who eat Irradiated food and we will give warnings where needed.
Maybe we'll be lucky this time and nothing bad will come of it.
Personally, I choose NOT to be a guinea pig anymore. I have no
real reason to eat Irradiated foods when I can find them fresh
and/or grow them myself.
I would be interested in knowing more about radiolytic by-products
due to Irradiation of food by Cobalt-60 or whatever. Does anyone
have any information on this?
ECZdbaker@nwuxd.UUCP (Darryl Baker) (02/28/84)
The only problem it seems with irradiated food is the chemical produced as a by-product of the sterilizing radiation and no one so far has come up with what they all are. I think this is the reason that the government is keeping these foods off the market. Darryl Baker ihnp4!nwuxd!dbaker
edhall@randvax.ARPA (Ed Hall) (02/28/84)
------------------------------- I've a question about this which I hope someone out there can provide a (referenced) answer to: what *chemical* effects are there produced in food by radiation? I realize that gamma radiation is not about to cause the elements in the food to transmute, but 1 Mev is more than enough energy to make or break a chemical bond. Are we sure that the results of these reactions (which I would expect to have a good chance of being biologically active) are harmless? I would think that the sterilizing effect of the radiation is based on this ability to break chemical bonds in, say, proteins and DNA. Are we sure that the radiation-induced chemical reactions which kill the microorganisms don't yield components which are toxic to life ingesting them? Remember, fruits, vegetables, grains, and even part of milk is composed of biological cells which are also being irradiated. -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall (UUCP) edhall@rand-unix (ARPA)
pat@symplex.UUCP (03/08/84)
I haven't been following the net very long ( we just recently got uucp up & running), but the articles on irradiating food caught my eye & I have a miniscule addition to make. While working for Varian a few years ago, one of the tertiary projects going on was the development of a linear accelerator for the purpose of producing sterilizing radiation in the form of x-rays in the 10 to 20 Mv range (Megavolt). This was an offshoot of the medical (cancer treatment) devices being mass-produced. Medical linear accelerators have been in use for about two decades now, and the use & affects thereof are pretty well documented. This type of radiation device has by now just about completely replaced Cobalt-60 systems due to much greater dosage rates & lower safety- related risks. I would expect to see linacs replace C-60 in food sterilization in the near future, if in fact it is not already occuring. While the concerns over toxic byproducts from energetic chemical reations would remain, the issues of short-half-life radioactive by- products, control over dosage, & contamination of foodstuffs by C-60 should, I think, be resolved by using linacs. Richard Patrick ..!dsd!symplex!pat Symplex Communications Belmont, Ca. 94002