expect more irradiated foods

[Guest guest]

I suspect we are going to see a *lot* of irradiated beans on the

market.

 

Alobar

 

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LONDON -- Indian scientists have come up with a cure for flatulence, by

blasting guilty foodstuffs such as beans with gamma rays to knock out the

offending chemicals that cause the problem, New Scientist magazine said on

Wednesday.

 

Bacteria in the large intestine are responsible for the gases that cause

flatulence, and when these bugs eat certain types of carbohydrate called

oligosaccharides they produce a mixture of methane and smelly sulfurous

gases, which cause the social embarrassment.

 

The finger of blame is most commonly pointed at beans and vegetables, 60

percent of whose carbohydrates are made up of oligosaccharides.

 

So Jammala Machaiah and Mrinal Pednekar in the food-science laboratory at

India's Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay decided to see whether

small doses of radiation affected these carbohydrates in various beans

common in Indian cuisine.

 

Using standard food treatment technology, they irradiated samples of mung

beans, chickpeas, black-eyed beans and red kidney beans with a low-intensity

gamma ray, before giving the beans their standard two-day soak prior to

cooking.

 

The scientists, whose research will appear in the journal Food Chemistry,

found the irradiation dramatically accelerated a reduction in

oligosaccharides, which occurs naturally in the soaking process, the

magazine said.

 

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,51354,00.html