Gambling on Food Irradiation

Anywhere from 6 million to 33 million people are stricken with food-borne diseases each year. Therefore, zapping pathogens and other undesirables lurking in food with a heavy dose of radiation is believed by many to be the right thing to do. In fact, every major food and health organization has endorsed the process. However, critics charge that food irradiation is unsafe, unhealthy and just a way for corporations to pawn off lower-quality foods items to a trusting public. Consider some of their claims, and how the irradiation proponents answer them:

• Irradiation alters the nutritional content of food.

This is true. Up to 10% of vitamins A, B1, E and K can be destroyed through the process. But irradiation proponents point out that these amounts are similar to losses during canning, or even when produce is kept in cold storage.

• Irradiated food produces cancer-causing by-products.

Both sides agree that foods do not become radioactive as a result of being irradiated. However, the process produces certain compounds, but these non-radioactive substances are identical to compounds naturally occurring in food. Some are carcinogenic, like benzene, but the amounts are so tiny they are measured in parts per billion. They also can be found in higher levels in certain foods. For example, eggs have 100 times more benzene than the highest levels created by irradiating foods.

• New substances created by irradiation could potentially cause health problems.

In the 40 years that irradiated foods have been investigated, no new compounds have been discovered that have been attributed solely to the radiation process.

• No long-term human safety studies have been done.

This is true. However, for the past ten years, thousands of mice with weakened immune systems have been feed irradiated food, and their incidence of cancer and other diseases has been no greater than that of normally fed mice. In a short-term study, human volunteers ate irradiated food with no increase in chromosomal abnormalities, which are commonly used as an indicator of cancer-causing action.

[Editor: Food is incredibly complex, as is the human body, and to think we've got it all figured out is foolish. Irradiation changes food. How can we know the extent of those changes, and their implications to human health, until extensive, long-term testing has been done?]  Based on information in: Technology Review, Nov/Dec 1997