Irradiated Food and Human Health

What is Irradiated Food?

When the food we consume has traceable amounts of radiation it is called irradiated food. Food irradiation is a technique to subject cooked and uncooked foods such as raw meats and fresh fruits and vegetables to some predetermined levels of ionized radiation for specific time periods.

What’s the Need for Food Irradiation

The principal objective of food irradiation is to increase the preservation time of the foods by inactivating and/or killing the food-borne parasites. It is a technique similar to pasteurization, which is done to preserve milk.

What Foods Require Irradiation?

Meat at slaughterhouses is subjected to radiation, which eliminates disease-producing bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, Campylobacter, etc which are culprits for millions of infections that eventually result in millions of hospitalizations and thousands of casualties every year.

The ready-to-eat meat stuff such as sausages, hamburgers and hotdogs are subjected to irradiation to remove species of Listeria. Even livestock feeds are not exempted either because these are often found contaminated with bacterial species of Salmonella.

What Changes Does Irradiation Bring to Foods?

Food irradiation brings in a variety of changes in the foods; harmful bacteria are destroyed (the DNA transcription and translation processes are impaired and there is no multiplication of bacteria). Irradiation also kills insects, fungal spores and many food-borne parasites. Irradiation slows natural ripening of fruits and this increases their respective shell life.

How safe is Irradiated Food?

The companies that supply irradiated food strongly say they are safe, but radiobiologists are questioning and researching on the safety of such foods on human health. However, as of now they do not have convincing conclusions to say they are unsafe; this makes consumers doubtful to use them. One day we may know until then stay tuned.

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