I read your article about food irradiation from 1995 with some interest. The type of process that was described has indeed been controversial and likely unsafe. However, there is a new technology that does not add anything to the food, nor will it create the amazing amount of public hysteria. Check out:
This process uses regular household electricity to zap away germs with electron beams as opposed to radiation, while the food is already in the package, without cooking it or making it glow. It has won FDA approval and is starting to be used in the food processing industry. However, it is early and public opinion is justly sceptical over anything with the word "radiation’ associated with it, even though it is not irradiation in the traditional sense. What a difference 5 years makes.
They’re calling it “electronic pasteurization” which does sound a lot better than irradiation. It’s being used on hamburger, Hawaiian fruit, dog treats, eggs, etc.
Any chemists feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t an electron beam capable of killing germs likely to produce the exact same chemical reactions as a beam of X or gamma rays? Of course, these changes are also generally produced by cooking, lest you think I oppose the idea.
The people who argue against irradiation are guilty of looking at only one side of the equation. Irradiated foods may have some miniscule increased risk from the process, but benefit is a VASTLY decreased risk of food poisoning, stomach cancer, and food spoilage. This last factor is extremely important, as food spoilage is one of the main problems with distribution in the 3rd world. Irradiating the food will make nutritious meals available to millions of people who otherwise would go without, and the health benefits of that are orders of magnitude greater than any added risk (if indeed there is any added risk at all).
This is the standard scare tactic of the luddite greens, which tends to oppose any commercial technology that changes the status quo, especially if it has the scary word ‘nuclear’ in it. I can remember when MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) was called NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), and people protested its use. So the NMR machines were ‘replaced’ with much ‘safer’ MRI machines (the replacement consisting of figuratively sticking a new label over the old one), and the ‘concern’ died away.
You sure about that? We used NMR in college (c. 1980) in organic chemistry, and it gives a graph of the resonance of a substance vs. frequency, to identify what molecules are present. An MRI gives an image. The image is based on nuclear magnetic resonance, but NMRs and MRIs are separate animals.
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm… where the money goes
It was called NMRI, and it was based directly on NMR. The NMR that you used in organic chemistry used a single magnet to induce the hydrogen nuclei (protons) in your smaple to line up. NMRI/MRI uses a three-dimensional magnetic gradient and a two-dimensional set of radio-frequency energy (RF) to produce an image showing where you body has more or less protons. In this way, tissues with more water appear darker (they could appear lighter, but I’m pretty sure the standard has been held over from X-rays, where bones appear white).
The saddest thing is that NMR and MRI are not powered by anything nuclear or radioactive. The Nuclear refers to the nuclei of the atoms which are being examined. The greatest danger from an MRI machine is to people with pacemakers or other metal objects in their bodies, which can get significantly scrambled by the magnets.
Oh, and don’t leave your credit cards in your pocket if you get one. It’ll wipe them clean.
Heh. I just read that webpage for the company that does this… and I have to say their marketing department is just superb. Why?
Well, to put it bluntly, exposure X to electrons (beta particles) is likely to cause more damage than exposure X to gamma or X rays.
This is because gamma rays are wont to pass right through living material, whereas tissue is pretty much at just the right density to stop electrons. And that’s why their technique will probably work better than direct irradiation. That, and the fact that people will associate an electron beam with their television.
(Kids, don’t break the screen on your TV. I wouldn’t want y’all fried by electrons.)
As to whether electrons will cause the same chemical reactions… yes and no. Certain reactions require radiative energy input, and the electrons are probably lower-energy than gamma rays anyway, which means they simply can’t cause all of the same reactions. However, they can cause some of these reactions–and they can generally disrupt atomic structures and so forth.
And yeah… cooking does similar things. Any input of energy will.
The sad thing here is that, like MRI above, no harmful radiation ever touches the end-user, whether electrons or gamma-rays are used. The food has been irradiated, it is not radioactive. Damn human think any word with the Latin “radia” in it is evil, which is why we now call our radios stereos. <sigh>
I did a bit of work on graphics software for NMRI. Back then, the machine was routinely called the NMR Imager, and the process was referred to as NMR. Now it’s referred to as MRI. When it was NMR there were all kinds of handwringing articles and some protests of the technology. As soon as it became MRI everyone was happy.
Here in Bahstun, the story is that they changed the initials from NMR to MRI because certain patients thought they were getting an entirely different procedure, given the lazy R’s around here.
My wife’s boss Donald Louria MD has publicly associated himself with the kooks opposing food irradiation. Don is an outstanding research physician at NJ Medical School. Several years ago he was blasted in a Wall Street Journal editorial for lending his prestige to these people.
Don has pointed out that vitamins are lost in the irradiation process. I believe him, but still think that irradiated fruits and vegetables must be nutritionally preferable to, say, natural potato chips (or, as DQ might write, “potatoe chips.”)
Another somewhat reasonable objection is the problem of disposing of radioactive waste. IMHO this is a political problem; there are plenty of suitable sites.
On the other hand, Don gives no support to the theory that irradiatied food is itself radioactive or otherwise dangerous to consume.
I think the concern over food irradiation is much overblown, however, I read the info on electron beam technology and I don’t see why those who are concerned about food irradiation would find anything to be less concerned about the electron beam technology. The food is irradiated and micro organisms are destroyed by the radiation. It’s just a different kind of radiation.