Irradiated Foods: Before You Put The Meat On the Barbecue Grill Read This!

Four years ago, according to Dr. Urvashi Rangan an environmental health scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union which is the publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine, examinations by the well known consumer watchdog group were conducted of irradiated meat and over 800 samples of ground meat were tested. It was concluded that, while irradiation lowers the levels of bacteria on meat products, radiation didn't always kill all of the bacteria. This means the products were likely safer; they are not necessarily safe.

Dr. Urvashi Rangan puts it another way, "....from our recent survey in June 2007, 71 percent of consumers don't particularly want to buy irradiated products."

We need to understand why food requires radiation in the first place. Dr. Rangan says it is to control filth.

We know with meat production, it is a very dirty process from the beginning. A googdly amount of farms simply don't have established hygiene standards to follow, nor do they follow the rules they have in place for sanitation. That is where the bacteria start. Cleaning up must start at the beginning. When that is done an assessment can be made to determine what additional measures are really necessary to provide safe edible meat.

As is stands now, even without the proposed regulations, meat that is unfit for sale, meat so contaminated it would be illegal to sell it, can actually be stored, irradiated and then sold to the public after that. The proposals is that if there's no change in taste that then the company could go forth and sell it without an irradiation label. This depends on many factors suchas how much radiation is used, and who is doing the tasting.

There is the potential to mask very serious hygiene problems. Irradiation can mask the fact the food was very dirty in the first place, spoiled even.These products can be sold to and unknowingly bought by consumers. The public could end up buying food previously so contaminated it would have been illegal to be sold.


The fact is right now at the processing plant if meat is so dirty that it doesn't pass USDA inspection standards, the meat can be held by the processor, irradiate it, and then sell it to consumers.

It would be impossible to standardize which foods are labeld radiated and which do not receive a label. We believe all foods that are irradiated should be labeled as such.

The public comment period on these proposed FDA irradiation rules ended on July 3, 2007. Make your opinion known to the regulating agency; contact your federal legislators to let them know how you feel about the proposed changes to protecting our food supply.

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New Regulations Proposed for Irradiation of Meat and Other Foods

You may think it's a new technique used to kill harmful bacteria in foods consumed by humans. It is not. For over 40 years a small portion of the U.S. food supply has been dosed with strong radiation. Irradiation of foods has proven to kill off dangerous microbes, extend the shelf life of foods and reduce spoilage.

Before we go further with this explanation, you must know when foods are irradiated the food does not become radioactive. The maximum dose of irradiation on meat is approximately 4.5 kiloGrays--this is the unit of irradiation. That would be the same as 7 million chest X-rays. That's a lot of energy for one package of meat. These X-rays are used to try to get the bacteria pathogens killed on the meat.

In the case of meat and other irradiated products containing fat, irradiation seems to cause a radiolytic byproduct, that is specific to irradiation. Radiation changes the fat into 2-alkylcyclobutanones, or 2-ACBs; when put into lab rats seem to cause cancer tumors in their colon. More research needs to be done in terms of the safety of irradiation, especially particularly when it comes to irradiating products like meat. In Europe irradiating meat is illegal because of those concerns about irradiated fat. This information comes from an NPR radio interview with Dr. Urvashi Rangan, an environmental health scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. Dr.Rangan is also Director of GreenerChoices.ORG

Currently federal regulations require foods that have been treated in this way must be labeled. The demand for food that carries the irradiated label is limited. The public is apprehensive about radiation, especially with regards to its food. Now the Food and Drug Administration is proposing sweeping changes that would relax labeling requirements.

The Food and Drug Administration, FDA, is caving in to the demands of the food industry representatives. Having been relentlessly petitioned in the past decade by people in the industry who want to use irradiation but don't always want to label it, the FDA under the Bush administration would allow for food that has been irradiated not to be labeled as irradiated, especially where there's no change in taste. Another major change would allow companies to provide alternate label claims in place of irradiation notice.

MORE ABOUT IRRADIATED FOODS IN THE NEXT POST

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