In an op-ed at USA Today Alex Berezow demands we start irradiating meat and produce:
The United States is being hit by two large foodborne illness outbreaks — first, the E. coli outbreak in romaine lettuce, and now a salmonella outbreak in beef that has sickened more than 200 people. These high-profile cases underscore the inadequacy of the safety measures meant to protect our food supply. If we are serious about addressing this issue, we must implement food irradiation.
Every year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 48 million cases of foodborne illness occur, hospitalizing 128,000 and killing 3,000, usually older or immunocompromised people. Those of you who have ever had the“24-hour flu†or “stomach flu†should be aware that those aren’t real diseases; instead, you probably had food poisoning.
As (I suspect) like most of you that idea makes me a bit queasy. Maybe I’m just the victim of propaganda.
There is one factor that Mr. Berezow is not considering: moral hazard. E. Coli isn’t endemic in romaine lettuce. It’s introduced there by bad field sanitation practices. If I understand it correctly, salmonella in meat is a consequence of bad sanitation practices in processing. It’s not the same as milk and, consequently, not the same as pasteurization. Will irradiating meat and produce increase or decrease the the number of bacterial infections from food? I don’t know and I suspect that Mr. Berezow doesn’t, either. How would you go about conducting an experiment?
There are actually real life experiments. In the EU irradiated spices and herbs are a commonplace and Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom allow the irradiation of a wider variety of foods. You’ve probably got irradiated foods in your refrigerator since a lot of produce imported from abroad has been irradiated.
On the con side of the argument there have been instances of serious illness that may have been caused by very highly irradiated foods. Would DoA inspectors be better at overseeing radiation than they are at other food processing?
The levels of radiation required can often affect the taste, texture and quality of the food. This isn’t a silver bullet.
When I worked the ED I saw hundreds of patients with food poisoning. Never saw any with illness from irradiated food, and just dont see any articles on this as a problem, other than as noted it can discolor or change tastes. Did a quick search and still didn’t find any that seemed credible.
Steve
Perhaps that’s because we aren’t routinely irradiating meat and produce. Would you identify illness as being due to irradiated food if you saw it and didn’t already know what it was? How would you go about diagnosing that’s what it was?
I would look at the journals and try to find a description of illness caused by irradiated food. Those didn’t exist. Dont know the true incident of irradiated food, but pretty sure that was back when we were irradiating milk. As I said, I haven’t seen reports of irradiated food causing illness, but this is not my area anymore. But if it were occurring in any significantnumbers I would think I would have seen it in general reading. You have link to such cases?
Just as a reminder one of my basic premises on food is that nearly all research on it is poorly done an every suspect.
Steve
Doesn’t that presuppose that you already know it’s caused by irradiated food? Contrariwise, I think you would assume it wasn’t caused by irradiated food.
Normally, with an option like this, you’d give consumers a choice. I’d guess no company wants their brand even associated with irradiation.
In Europe, most fluid milk is sold warm, in the packaged goods section, ultra pasteurized in a foil lined carton with a six month shelf life. Here in the USA, dairy companies are losing money fast and would love to do the same for cost reasons. But the consumer won’t buy it, tastes a little off.
I suppose the Dept of Agriculture could use it on their food commodities program. Hard to turn down free hamburger.
FWIW, irradiated food has been offered for sale before and was a failure. The radiation word scares too many in the media world despite their livelihood depends on it. I noticed a 25 to 50 cent per pound premium for irradiated meat so gave it pass.
Fecal contamination of vegetables is difficult to control when the picker isn’t earning when he’s enthroned and using machinery costs more than piece rate day labor.
“Doesn’t that presuppose that you already know it’s caused by irradiated food?”
That is the kind of stuff that gets caught pretty quickly. If it was causing illness, it would have been caught and published and been in the journals.
Steve
All store-bought milk tastes off.
When the farmer changes up feed, say from alfalfa to corn silage, the cows need time for the bacteria in their gut to adjust.
They get diarrhea for a few days and the milk has a bad taste. Called “tasting green” after the color of the poo.
Every load that goes into the bottling plant is sampled by the lab and samples stored for some period to watch for bacterial growth. It’s also tasted, and if “green” is mixed with other loads that are not to even out the taste. Dilute it.
Then it;s all separated into cream and skim milk. The cream is added back to exactly 3 and 1/2%, to create “4%” whole milk. And so on for 2%, 1%. Then it’s homogenized, shaken violently to break up the fat globules into smaller ones which are easier for your bloodstream to absorb.
Then, pasteurized, heated just enough to knock back the bacteria already present but not so much as to give it a burnt taste.
Done right, it should be good in the fridge for about three weeks, depending on how often you open the door.
Every effort is made to keep it cold from the plant to your cart. but those bacteria never give up.