Fwd: [SoFlaVegans] Nuking Food

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Nuking Food

Contamination Fears and market Possibilities Spur an Irradiation

Revival

By Brita Belli

 

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India alone grows 1,000 varieties of mangoes in such delectable

variations as the sweet, orange-skinned Alphonso, the Bombay Green

and the Bangalora. Here in the U.S., we rarely see more than one

lonely variety at the local supermarket, but that’s all about to

change. Soon consumers will be able to sample the sweet and tart

nectars of many more imported fruits and vegetables from Thailand,

India and Mexico piled high in the produce section. But there’s a

catch: this fruit will arrive irradiated.

 

Shoppers may not be the wiser. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

rules in place since 1986 have required the radura—a symbol for

irradiation that resembles a flower in a broken circle—on placards in

front of produce displays or on packaged food like ground beef, along

with the statement: “treated with radiation” or “treated by

irradiation.” But last April, the FDA proposed a revision to those

rules. Food which had undergone irradiation, but not “material

change,” would no longer have to bear the radura logo and companies

could replace the word “irradiation” with the more consumer-friendly

“pasteurized” or something else innocuous. Public comment on the

current proposed change closes in early July. Industry insiders argue

that irradiation is a necessary answer to food-borne illness such as

last year’s E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak in California-grown spinach,

which left three dead and sickened 200 others. It was the 20th such

outbreak in lettuce or spinach since 1995. “I look at it from a

unique perspective,” says Dennis Olson, the director of the

irradiation program at Iowa State University. “All of our bagged

spinach and lettuce and fresh-cut produce goes through a metal

detector. How common is it to find metal? It almost never happens.

How often does E. coli 0157:H7 happen? Almost never. [but] if that

produce had been irradiated there would have been none.”

 

The Global Connection

 

A commitment to public health is certainly in the best interests of

consumer and industry, but a burgeoning worldwide market plays an

equally important role in the sudden interest in irradiation. One

third of commercial spices in the U.S. are already subject to

irradiation—treatment by gamma rays or electron beams to kill

pathogens—as are some 15 to 18 million pounds of ground beef,

according to Ron Eustice, executive director of the Minnesota Beef

Council. In 2000, the FDA reported that 97 million pounds of food

products were irradiated annually. But, excluding spices, these

products are only available in limited quantity: the occasional

hospital meal or the odd chicken breast in a Florida supermarket.

Irradiation in the world of fresh produce is still something new, and

it’s opening the door to American imports of litchi (a red fruit

similar to a grape) and longan (a round fruit resembling an eyeball

when shelled) from Thailand as well as new mangoes from India.

 

“I was just in India,” says Eustice, “and there are close to 20

irradiation facilities going up [across Asia] in the next 12 months.

That may be a conservative estimate.” In March of 2006, when

President Bush was in India cementing a civilian nuclear agreement,

he found time to promote the import of Indian mangoes. Both decisions

are likely hinged on the rocketing Indian economy, the

fastest-growing in the world according to Goldman Sachs. And

irradiation is the strange mistress in the middle.

 

At a press conference in New Delhi, Bush spoke out in favor of

lifting the 17-year ban on mango imports from India, imposed because

of heavy pesticide concerns. “The U.S. is looking forward to eating

Indian mangoes,” he said. It’s also looking forward to exporting its

own beans, like lentils and chickpeas, to India, as part of the trade

agreement.

 

The market for more exotic foods is exploding, in part because

America is home to such a large number of immigrants and because

consumers, influenced by their travels and cultural experiences, are

demanding more variety. But traditional bananas and pineapples will

cross the borders, too, thanks to irradiation. It’s cheaper for

American companies to import produce, says Wenonah Hauter, executive

director of Food & Water Watch. In Latin America where an increasing

amount of the American food supply is grown, “you can use pesticides

that are illegal in the U.S. and there are [fewer] environmental

standards,” Hauter says. “The food industry’s plan is moving to the

global south.”

 

Irradiation would help that plan along immensely, by delaying

ripening in fruits like bananas and avocados and inhibiting sprouting

in root vegetables, such as onions and potatoes. Irradiation prevents

mushroom caps from opening, and even delicate fruits like

strawberries benefit from radioactive zapping, according to

information offered by the Food Irradiation Processing Alliance.

Because the process “reduces spoilage bacteria and

molds....irradiated strawberries can last a week in the refrigerator

without developing mold.” Companies could also use cheaper, slower

means of transportation to get their perishable items to grocery

stores.

 

And the FDA says there is no reason why irradiated foods shouldn’t

become the norm. The process is allowed in nearly 40 countries and is

endorsed by the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association.

 

But even with all the support, the process hasn’t penetrated the U.S.

market, despite industry claims that consumers are indifferent to its

use. “Numerous university studies show that support for irradiated

foods can reach as high as 85 to 90 percent when accurate information

is provided,” says the Minnesota Beef Council.

 

Nuking It

 

Just three years ago, irradiation looked like a losing proposition.

San Diego-based food irradiation provider Surebeam had declared

bankruptcy, closing four plants nationwide and making it difficult

for companies like Omaha Steaks who wanted ground beef irradiated to

find a local provider. Dennis Olson was then SureBeam’s vice

president for food technology, and blamed unnecessary expansion and

high overhead on the company’s demise.

 

Today, the majority of the 45 U.S. irradiation facilities sterilize

medical products, not food, says Richard Hunter, CEO and president of

Food Technology Service (FTS), an irradiation facility in Mulberry,

Florida. His company does both. The boxed beef patties or Band-Aids

are loaded onto carriers and they pass through a field of radiation

whose maximum dose (in the case of food) is set by the FDA. “A

truckload of frozen beef patties may take 30 minutes” to irradiate,

Hunter says.

 

Hunter claims it’s an environmentally responsible process. Nuclear

power plants use cobalt-59 as an adjustor or control rod, which is

converted to radioactive cobalt-60 during the nuclear reaction

process. This cobalt-60, contained in pellets, is then placed in rods

for the irradiation facility, grouped with hundreds of other rods

surrounded by six-foot-thick concrete walls. Cobalt-60 is also used

in Gamma Knife surgery to remove brain tumors. “That’s a usable

byproduct instead of waste,” says Hunter. He adds that new pellets

are spaced with old ones within the long, thin, stainless steel rods,

so that they are “isolated from the environment for 50 years.” By the

time the cobalt-60 pellets are replaced, he says, “They are virtually

not radioactive.”

 

Vocal Opposition

 

But Food & Water Watch, the most vocal group against widespread

irradiation and the FDA proposal to soften labeling rules, sees no

environmental silver lining. The group points out that irradiation

experts and spokespeople often move back and forth between government

and the industry trough. Hunter, for example, resigned as deputy

health officer of the Florida Department of Health for his six-figure

job as president of FTS. But he was advocating for the process long

before he made the switch, the group notes. “In 1998,” says a Food &

Water Watch report, “he went so far as to write a letter to Florida

residents promoting food irradiation, a letter that Food Technology

Service since began using in its marketing material.”

 

Opponents say the meat industry wants to use irradiation as a quick

fix to poor sanitation in 200-birds-per-minute slaughterhouse lines

and that the technology is being pushed through without proper

testing.

 

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the

Public Interest says, “Irradiation is a high-tech end-of-the-line

solution to contamination problems that can and should be addressed

earlier. Consumers prefer to have no filth on meat than to have filth

sterilized by irradiation.” Such groups as the Organic Trade

Association (OTA) are alarmed by greater potential irradiation

allowances, too. Since the late 1990s, OTA has opposed federal

efforts to increase irradiation, especially on certified organic

foods. “Food irradiation is a synthetic pro-cess that has never been

allowed in organic production,” says OTA. “The long-term effects of

irradiation are still un-known, and irradiation is not a panacea to

food safety concerns.”

 

Iowa State’s Olson says all safety research was completed by the

1980s and “while there is still some continuing work, nothing

[negative] has been shown on a consistent basis.” In fact, astronauts

have been eating irradiated food since the 1970s, increasing its

respectability. But the reason they eat it has more to do with zero

gravity than nutrition. The irradiation process removes the fluid

from meat so it can be heated and eaten without mess while astronauts

circle the planet. But what may be appropriate foodstuff for a

traveler on an infrequent voyage to the moon raises far more serious

concerns for the majority of the population facing unidentified

irradiated foods in all segments of the supermarket.

 

“It doesn’t bode well for the kind of food we want to eat,” Hauter

says. “To use a euphem-ism like ‘pasteurized’ is not the equivalent

of millions of chest X-rays passing through [the plant] cells and

breaking those bonds. The truth is, we don’t know the long-term

health effects of a mostly irradiated diet.”

 

The food supply already undergoes a lot of unsettling-sounding

processes in the quest for consumer safety, says Hunter, and none of

those processes are labeled. “Poison gas is used on fruits and

vegetables to kill insect larvae,” he says, “and organic acid rinses.

Irradiation is obviously a scary word, but, for me, it’s a badge of

honor.”

 

BRITA BELLI is managing editor of E.

 

CONTACTS

 

Food Technology Service

http://www.foodtechservice.com/

Phone: (863)425-0039

 

Minnesota Beef Council

http://www.mnbeef.org/

Phone: (952) 854-6980

 

Food & Drug Administration Public Comments on Irradiation Labeling

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/dockets/comments/getDocketInfo.cfm?EC_DOCUMENT_ID=1511 & SORT=DOCKET_NO & MAXROWS=15 & START=46 & CID= & AGENCY=FDA

 

Food and Water Watch

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

Phone: (202) 797-6550

 

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