Food Irradiation: The Truth

The most promising food safety technology since pasteurization is food irradiation. The concept is simple: food of many varieties is processed with ionizing radiation, which kills bacteria and parasites that could otherwise make humans sick or cause the food to rot more quickly. Irradiated meat stays pink longer, and contains no bacteria that could cause food poisoning. Irradiated fruits can stay fresh for up to three weeks; imagine strawberries that stay fresh and free of mold for that long!

Food irradiation was first studied as an application to keep astronauts from getting sick, and all space-bound food is irradiated first. Scientists have found that irradiation greatly reduces or entirely eliminates causes of disease on food without changing the nutritional value of the food. Though the food is slightly changed during the irradiation treatment, it does not become radioactive and no dangerous substances are produced in it.

If all raw meat was treated with irradiation at the slaughterhouse, most bacteria that causes food poisoning (resulting in thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths each year) could be eliminated; this includes E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter, the three most dangerous food toxins. Listeria could be eliminated from hot dogs and deli meat. Cyclospora, shigella, and salmonella could be eliminated from fresh produce without harming the produce in any way. Dry foods like grains could be protected from micro-organisms and the eggs and larva of many bugs, as well as preventing the initial contamination of livestock with salmonella and other bacteria.

There are three techniques used today for food irradiation. Gamma rays, using radioactive cobalt or cesium, are targeted at foods and penetrate up to several feet, in the same process that has been used for decades in medical and dental sterilization. Because these radioactive materials give off photons but not neutrons or other particles, there is no danger of making irradiated substances radioactive, just as sunlight cannot make most substances glow in the dark.