Food Irradiation for Food Safety?

Instead of solving the basic problems of sanitation in the food industry, a recent solution put into effect by food producers to prevent the spread of such bacteria is to irradiate food. According to research conducted by the Center for Food Safety (CFS), food irradiation uses high-energy gamma rays, electron beams or X-rays—all of which are millions of times more powerful than standard medical X-rays—to break apart the bacteria and insects that can hide in meat, grains and other foods.

The Center for Food Safety is a non-profit public interest and environmental advocacy membership organization with the purpose of challenging harmful food production technologies and promoting sustainable alternatives. Food irradiation has loomed large on their radar screen of late.

“There are a number of alarming facts about food irradiation,” Bill Freese, Science Policy Analyst with CFS, told Organic Connections. “One thing is that it is an extremely high energy process that does a lot of undefined things to food components. In some cases it creates unique compounds that are not found anywhere else; they’re called ‘unique radiolytic products’ (URPs). The science is still not there as to whether these compounds are hazardous to health or not, but there are a number of studies that suggest they are. These types of compounds are found especially in meats with higher fat content. Some studies suggest that the process changes the fat molecules into compounds that, in the presence of carcinogenic compounds, intensify the carcinogens’ impact. It kind of promotes the adverse impact of another known toxic compound.”

According to data on the CFS website, irradiation also causes foods to lose from 2 to 95 percent of their vitamins. For example, irradiation can destroy up to 80 percent of the vitamin A in eggs, up to 95 percent of the vitamin A in green beans, up to 50 percent of the vitamin A in broccoli, and 40 percent of the beta carotene in orange juice. Irradiation also doubles the amount of trans fats in beef.

Freese cited other examples of nutrient reduction. “Vitamin C levels in spinach are very strongly reduced when it is irradiated, even at much lower than the maximum dose permitted by the FDA. The B vitamin folate [which occurs naturally in food—folic acid is the synthetic form of folate found in supplements] is also reduced by significant amounts, and of course we all know folate is extremely important, especially for pregnant women, and is absolutely essential for developing embryos.”

Dead Food, Longer Shelf Life

In addition to the killing of disease-causing microorganisms, another argument in favor of food irradiation is that it reduces spoilage and increases shelf life. Spoilage is reduced because microbes of all sorts are diminished, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control website.

But in addition to the nutrients being killed off along with everything else, Freese explained another potential danger. “There are certain disease-causing microorganisms that are radiation resistant. One of them is the bacterium that causes botulism. Scientists have expressed concern that if you zap the spoilage microorganisms, which are more sensitive, then you create a clear playing field for this kind of dangerous botulism bacterium. It could potentially multiply because it has no competition. In its decision to approve spinach and lettuce irradiation, the FDA even raised this issue. I went to the sources that they cited [in their approval] and they were just not convincing; there were not good studies to rule this hazard out. I think that’s still a real issue.”

Who Is the Government Protecting?

In reading from the Centers for Disease Control website, one gets the impression that food irradiation is not only unharmful but beneficial. This is despite studies and other data that suggest otherwise.

“The government, as in many regulatory areas, has bought into industry arguments,” Freese said. “I think they’re favorable to irradiation when, in fact, they should be a lot more skeptical and be much more objective and scientific about it.

“There are a lot of studies out there, and some of them do seem to suggest that irradiation is not a problem. But it’s a case of the science not having captured all that’s going on when you irradiate something. Sometimes the government will refer to studies from the 1990s that seem to show that irradiation is safe; yet in just this past decade new studies have come along that show previously undetected compounds appearing in irradiated foods, which have negative effects. There certainly needs to be more study done because there are troubling signs of toxicity. And there’s no argument with the nutritional depletion—everybody knows that.”

Deceiving Shoppers

Interestingly, while the government is insisting that irradiation is safe, the FDA recently proposed that labeling of irradiated foods—which currently must be done—be changed to make it less obvious. One has to wonder why, if irradiation is so safe, labeling needs to be restricted.

Currently, irradiated food must be labeled “Treated with irradiation” or “Treated by radiation” and must display the irradiated “radura” symbol. The new rule proposed by the FDA would allow irradiated food to be marketed in some cases without any labeling at all. In other cases, the rule would allow the terms electronically pasteurized or cold pasteurized to replace the use of irradiated on labels.

“This is totally unacceptable,” Freese stated about the proposed change. “Irradiation has no scientific resemblance to pasteurization, which is a very well defined process used with milk. So it’s clearly deception.”

True Cause of Problems

Freese points out that irradiating foods is really an attempt to excuse food companies from having to clean up their manufacturing practices.

“Actually dealing with the true cause of these problems is really important,” he said. “It’s a shame. They’ve really fallen down on the job of policing these few huge slaughterhouses that process the majority of our meat. If you have any episode of contamination, even if it’s pretty rare, it’s going to affect a whole lot of people. And the standards at these plants are not what they should be. Basically we need to get away from this industrial agriculture and attack the problem at its source. At the least, higher standards would make these companies clean up their acts.”

Fortunately, organizations such as CFS are in there fighting for both the “symptomatic cure” (food irradiation) and the actual cause itself.

For further reading on CFS’s food irradiation research, visit www.centerforfoodsafety.org/food_irrad.cfm.