What is food irradiation?
Food irradiation is a promising new food safety technology that can eliminate disease-causing germs from foods. Like pasteurization of milk, and pressure cooking of canned foods, treating food with ionizing radiation can kill bacteria and parasites that would otherwise cause foodborne disease. Similar technology is used to sterilize medical devices so they can be used in surgery or implanted without risk of infection. The food that NASA astronauts eat has been sterilized by irradiation to avoid getting foodborne illness in space. The effects of irradiation on the food and on animals and people eating irradiated food have been studied extensively.
Food irradiation is a food safety technology that can greatly reduce disease-causing bacteria from foods. Like pasteurization of milk and pressure-cooking of canned foods, irradiating food kills bacteria and parasites that could otherwise cause food-borne disease. See Health Canada’s backgrounder for more information.
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. 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. Research also shows that irradiation forms volatile toxic chemicals such as benzene and toluene, chemicals known or suspected to cause cancer and birth defects. Irradiation also causes stunted growth in lab animals fed irradiated foods.
Food irradiation is the process of exposing food to an ionizing energy to kill harmful bacteria and other organisms, and extend shelf-life. It is a safe process and has been approved by some 50 countries worldwide and applied commercially in the USA, Japan, and several European countries for many years. Approved irradiated foods include fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish and seafood, roots and tubers, cereals, legumes, spices and dried vegetable seasonings.Irradiation can help meat, poultry and seafood keep longer by reducing spoilage-causing microbes. How Does Food Irradiation Work? When food is irradiated, it passes through an enclosed irradiation chamber where it is exposed to ionizing energy. This can be in the form of gamma rays from specific radioisotope sources, or x-rays or electron beams from machine-made sources. All three types of ionizing energy have the same ability to inactivate spoilage and disease-causing microorganisms without causing harmful changes to the food.
In the past year, we’ve faced several food-borne illnesses deriving from foods such as spinach, ground beef, and unpasteurized fruit juices. Researchers have been busy trying to come up with ways to combat the new strains of harmful bacteria as well as the forms of bacteria that have evolved which cause serious illness. Among the technologies that have been studied, a process called irradiation has been found to be an effective way to ensure that harmful organisms are eliminated from the foods found in our grocery stores. Energy waves passing through the food can kill harmful bacteria in food such as meat and poultry products by breaking molecular bonds in the DNA of bacteria, other pathogens, and insects. How safe is irradiation? The Food and Drug Administration has approved irradiation for a variety of foods including meat, poultry, fresh fruits, vegetables, and spices.
