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
pdt@mhuxv.UUCP (tyma) (02/22/84)
Hoo boy! I hardly know where to begin my comments on a recent submission, which I summarize here: > 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... > The problem is that a few key facts have been misplaced or not provided at all. First of all, your Freudian slip is showing: Cobol is an acronym for a programming language; the element is *cobalt*. Second of all, if you choose not to believe that irradiation of food by Co-60 is safe, these are the facts with which you must deal: - all radiation (within *five* significant figures) from Cobalt 60 is gamma (99.870% at 1.173 MeV, 0.120% at 1.332 MeV, and 0.008% at 2.158 MeV). Therefore, no particles (alpha, beta, neutron, positron, etc.) are emitted. - if (and it's a mighty big if) the irradiated food is to become radioactive itself as a result of exposure to this emission, it must contain an element which has a significant "capture cross-section" (probability of absorption) for photons (light) at these energies and which assumes a long-lived unstable nuclear state when it absorbs this light. <FLAME ON> This situation is a far cry from that in the 1950's, when "miracle" technology was tested only for very obvious effects (e.g. does a rat die when I feed him this stuff?). Many fundamentally dangerous substances were unleashed upon an unsuspecting public by trusted but nonetheless ignorant members of the scientific community. Had we used 1980's standards back then, many of the mistakes referred to in the previous article could have been avoided. We have the means to characterize the elements in the food, to measure their radiation-absorption cross sections, and most of all to measure the radioactivity of the irradiated food. The test for side effects is *so* simple here--use a Geiger or proportional counter to see if the food is radioactive! It is as unlike the situation with chemicals of subtle toxicity as night is to day. I'm not going take these scientists at their word just because they are "experts"-- nor am I going to result to sensationalism and fear just because the word "radiation" was used. I'm going to THINK about what the word means and how it might affect me before I resort to hand-wringing. It's too da*n bad that discussions about toxicity and radiation tend to generate more heat than light. <FLAME OFF>
wolit@rabbit.UUCP (Jan Wolitzky) (02/22/84)
While Pat Iurilli (and others) have every reason to be suspicious of
the introduction of new food or drug processes to the marketplace,
let's remember that it was the drug industry that gave us DES, and the
food industry that gave us EDB, and not the "scientific community."
Real scientists don't have an axe to grind; people who work for
companies that pay them to develop products or "prove" their products
safe aren't scientists, they're technologists.
That said, let's look at the issue of irradiated food. (First, I want
to emphasize that this is all armchair quarterbacking: I'm not an
expert in either health physics or food processing.) It seems that
there are three possible ways in which irradiating food could hurt you
directly:
1. It could make the food itself radioactive. This depends on the
type of source used. With neutrons, sure, atoms in the food could
fission, creating radioactive products. With alpha (helium
nuclei), beta (electrons), or gamma (photons) particles, I don't
see how this could happen. Anyway, it would be very easy to
detect, and thus control, so this isn't much of a problem.
2. It could transform some benign substance in the food into
something dangerous. Again, only by fissioning could this sort of
alchemy be accomplished. My guess is that we're talking about
something completely different from what's being proposed.
3. It could cause living cells in the food to manufacture toxins.
This is a more interesting possibility. Not at all applicable to
anything not currently living, but it might present a problem for
the treatment of fresh produce -- anybody know if this is being
considered? This problem could arise if radiation levels were
sufficient to induce genetic changes in the treated material
(which they certainly must be, to be effective) but insufficient to
completely destroy the nuclear (in the biological sense) machinery
of every last cell. For instance, would anyone in the food
industry care to speculate on how many nucleotide substitutions,
deletions, etc., are needed to cause the DNA in the cells of an
edible mushroom to code for the toxins that are normally produced
by a closely related, poisonous species? (My guess would be one or
two.) For this reason, I would hope that a distinction be made
between the use of radiation to treat living and non-living
products.
Note that above I specified DIRECT dangers. While not exactly in the
purview of the FDA, the widespread use of high-level radioactive
products by the food industry presents several new risks to society
that should be considered beforehand. Outside of the nuclear power
and weapons industries, only a tiny amount of radioactive substances
is now used, mainly in the scientific and medical fields. The food
industry is a giant business, employing many unskilled and semiskilled
workers, and operating under only loose government supervision. To
introduce large quantities of highly radioactive materials to this
industry may not be possible economically, with the kind of safety
the public expects. (For example, explosions in grain storage
elevators have become a big problem lately, exacerbated by the Reagan
administration's elimination of many safety regulations. Right now, such
explosions endanger only (!) the workers in this industry. If they
had the potential to scatter radioactive debris over as wide an area
as they now scatter dust, however...) Also, the addition of many tons
of radioactive waste products to those now generated by the atomic
power industry would only aggravate the need to find a quick solution
to THAT problem (and we know the trouble with having to live with quick
fixes, rather than well-thought-out solutions).
In all, this issue is much more of a big can of worms than many
proponents would have us think, though by no means is the evidence
against it overwhelmingly compelling. As with Thalidomide in the
early 50s, the public often has reason to be thankful for the FDA's
cautiousness, even when the affected industry is screaming that we're
falling behind other countries in the world because of big, bad
government. No one's gonna go bust if this new technology is held in
check for a few more years. Let's think this one out real carefully.
Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJecs@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!"mather@uicsl.UUCP (02/23/84)
#R:tekig1:-155000:uicsl:3800041:000:990 uicsl!mather Feb 22 10:47:00 1984 I saw on Good Morning America that the FDA has approved the irradiation of many foods (mostly fruits and vegetables). Irradiated food has been around for a long time in other countries, but the safety has been in question, until recently. The FDA has determined that irradiated food is safe to eat (probably SAFER!) and will not even require labels on the food saying that it has been irradiated. They showed an irradiated steak that was sealed in a metal pouch for months. It looked OK to me, but then I didn't taste it! My father (a PhD in food science) tells me that irradiated milk is also common, though less used in the United States (I don't know why, and didn't ask him. I think it has to do with wanting to keep some bacterium alive (the good guys) and killing the bad bacterium, but irradiation wipes out everything.) We are all sure to hear screams of 'cancer' from the public, no matter what results are published. It never fails. B.C.Mather uiucdcs!uicsl!mather
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
kissell@flairvax.UUCP (Kevin D. Kissell) (02/24/84)
If cobalt 60 is the pure gamma emitter advertised, then, as has been pointed
out, the risk of irradiated food items becoming radioactive themselves is
indeed small. I wonder, however, what sorts of subtle photochemical reactions
can be induced by photons with gamma energies. Anyone got any data?
Kevin D. Kissell
Fairchild Research Center
Advanced Processor Development
uucp: {ihnp4 decvax}!decwrl!\
>flairvax!kissell
{ucbvax sdcrdcf}!hplabs!/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
grunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (02/28/84)
#R:uicsg:4400016:uiuccsb:7000029:000:381 uiuccsb!grunwald Feb 27 17:29:00 1984 /***** uiuccsb:net.cooks / uicsg!patel / 12:36 pm Feb 27, 1984 */ What If? Here is the scenario. Suppose the Gamma radiation did not kill ALL bacteria. Suppose further that it altered the genes of the bacteria which were left alive. Suppose these mutants can multiply at a high rate and spread some totally new disease. What then? /* ---------- */ Then we all die. Tough.
patel@uicsg.UUCP (02/28/84)
#N:uicsg:4400016:000:271 uicsg!patel Feb 27 12:36:00 1984 What If? Here is the scenario. Suppose the Gamma radiation did not kill ALL bacteria. Suppose further that it altered the genes of the bacteria which were left alive. Suppose these mutants can multiply at a high rate and spread some totally new disease. What then?
dbaker@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)
berry@zehntel.UUCP (02/28/84)
#R:tekig1:-155000:zinfandel:4300050:000:564 zinfandel!berry Feb 24 10:48:00 1984 What little I have read about food irradiation makes it sound wonderful. Basically what it does is sterilize the food, with no other effects. Any induced radiation tends to be very short lived, and very low level anyway. With irradiation, we would not need to use EDB on grains! The problem is the 'general public's irrational fear of anything with the word 'radiation' in it. (I mean, if people think that sodium erythrobate is made from earthworms, what won't the beleive next.) Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (415)932-6900
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
crm@rti.UUCP (05/22/84)
Consider the odds... They are talking about MEGARADS -- the dose is high enough to almost ensure sterilization. They use the same sort of system to sterilize hospital wastes and such.