"Mom, What is Irradiation?"

Last night as we were sitting down at the dinner table, my son asked about irradiation. At first, I thought he was referring to the aftermath of a nuclear war, but it soon became evident that he was actually speaking of food.

In all honesty, irradiated food is a topic that I haven't thought much about since the time there was a huge protest against the FDA when they wanted to change the wording on food packaging labels. For some reason, the FDA wanted to use the word "pasteurized" in place of "irradiated" to describe preservation techniques used with food--even though their initial studies proved this type of labeling would be misleading to consumers.

So I decided to find out how the idea of irradiation materialized in the first place, and it turns out that e-coli and bacteria growth issues are some of the leading causes. Although these types of problems are actually perpetuated by the unsanitary conditions found within large factory farms and food storage warehouses, big corporations are using food safety scares as a perfectly good excuse to keep our food "protected from disease" by a process which entails the usage of high-energy Gamma rays, electron beams, and super powerful X-rays.

So is irradition really harmless?

Of course, the FDA's research on food irradiation shows evidence that this type of preservation is perfectly safe for human consumption. FDA scientists concluded that irradiation reduces or eliminates pathogenic bacteria, insects and parasites. It reduces spoilage, and in certain fruits and vegetables, it inhibits sprouting and delays the ripening process. Also, it does not make food radioactive, compromise nutritional quality, or noticeably change food taste, texture or appearance as long as it's applied properly to a suitable product.

However, the Center for Food Safety's research proves otherwise. Accoring to them, Radiation can do strange things to food, by creating substances called "unique radiolytic products." These irradiation byproducts include a variety of mutagens - substances that can cause gene mutations, polyploidy (an abnormal condition in which cells contain more than two sets of chromosomes), chromosome aberrations (often associated with cancerous cells), and dominant lethal mutations (a change in a cell that prevents it from reproducing) in human cells. Making matters worse, many mutagens are also carcinogens.

And with over 50 years of investigating, food scientists still do not fully understand how these changes take place. Much of the ongoing research, in fact, is focused on devising new ways to hide the changes that happen to irradiated foods instead of finding safer, alternative methods of preserving food.

So how do we, as consumers, know for sure if our food has been subject to a trip down sci-fi lane? All we need to do is ask--because the main goal is to find out where your food really comes from and how it is treated along the way. Even if you shop at major chain grocers, you can question the meat and produce managers before you make a purchase. You also protect yourself when you buy organics or join a local CSA (which I write about in a previous topic). You can also support local farmer's markets and develop a face-to-face relationship with the producers of your food. Or better still, you can even grow some of your own.