Posted on 12/22/2006 1:42:17 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
A Wisconsin State Journal editorial
Three cases of mass food poisoning in the United States in the past four months have sickened hundreds and killed three, including a Wisconsin woman. These incidents highlight a need for America to take a leap forward in food safety by promoting the use of irradiation.
Irradiation can do for meat and produce what pasteurization does for milk: Kill bacteria that cause illness and death.
It's time for Wisconsin to take a leading role in making irradiation an important part of the nation's food safety strategy.
•Consumers should demand that irradiated food be offered as a choice in supermarkets and on menus.
•School districts should request irradiated meat for their school lunch programs.
•Wisconsin's congressional delegation should encourage the federal Food and Drug Administration to pick up the speed with which it evaluates requests to expand the use of irradiation for food safety, particularly a request to irradiate packaged foods such as the E. coli-tainted bagged spinach that caused the death of a 77-year-old Manitowoc woman in September.
Irradiation uses gamma rays to sanitize food. The American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control, the American Dietetic Association and the World Health Organization are among the groups that support irradiation as a safe and effective way to promote food safety.
It's inexpensive, too. Irradiation adds just 2 to 5 cents a pound to the cost of food. As it becomes more widely used, the cost will decline.
Yet irradiation has been slow to spread through the food industry. Only about 1 percent of the meat and produce sold in the United States is irradiated.
A chief barrier has been unfounded fears promoted by anti-irradiation crusaders including the Organic Consumers Association and Public Citizen, founded by Ralph Nader. In the tradition of the irrational groups that protested the pasteurization of milk and fluoridation of water, they rail against the unknown threats from a sinister new technology.
The technology is neither sinister nor is it without a resume. The FDA's first approvals of irradiation, for wheat and wheat flour, came in 1963. Some spices, potatoes and strawberries have been irradiated for years. Astronauts have eaten irradiated meat since the 1970s.
As for unknown threats, they remain unknown because 50 years of scientific research have found none.
The known risks of failing to use irradiation are far more persuasive. Nationwide, 325,000 Americans are hospitalized with food-borne illnesses each year, and 5,000 die.
Irradiation cannot absolutely guarantee food safety. But along with proper handling and preparation, irradiation can dramatically reduce the cases of illness and death, if it becomes commonplace.
Wisconsin should help make it happen.
For more information on irradiation, consult www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/foodirradiation.htm.
It's tooo scary for the Inconvenient Truth types. It has the word "radiation" in it.
I meant to ping you to this thread earlier
Let Irradiation Make Food Safer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757268/posts
Oh no....we can't have any type of radiation...radiation is evil.....
I wonder if Ralph Nader ever used a microwave oven?
Good Gosh. Are you trying to scare the bejeezus out of those people by posting this?
Sheesh...I have been on this side of the issue for years, but just gave up. The lunatics hear the word "radiation" and they start slavering at the mouth.
Try and tell them that food borne poisioning kills and sickens millions and millions of people around the world, and spoilage is responsible for so much wastage, and all you will get back from them is "FREE RADICALS IN FOOD!!!!! WE"RE DOOMED IF WE IRRADIATE FOOD!"
I just gave up on this.
Oops! But thank you!
Reminds me of the "Rachel Carson-ites" and the banning of DDT. IMHO, she's responsible for millions of preventable deaths from Malaria around the world.
(All kidding aside, if you ate in an army chow hall during the period in Europe, you cannot give blood.)
I know nothing about irradiation so don't jump on me and call me anti-irridation but I have a question of you who are more knowledgeable. Would irradiation of food allow unscrupulous suppliers to sell food that would otherwise be too old or otherwise not clean or healthy enough to sell?
About 400 years ago, some genious in VA came up with a solution - I think they call it "smoked ham."
A new word or phrase is needed.
Like:
"Cold Cooking"
"Ray Sterilization"
"ElectroCleaning"
Something like that to sell to the luddites and the rubes.
Exactly!!!!!!!!
I go to Cambridge, MA, on occasion, which as I have told you in the past, is very similar to Madison with respect to the concentration of Moonbattery there.
They have a three story high mural painted on a wall there with a bunch of feminists (one of which is her) with the quote that says something like "...“...indication of harm, rather than proof of harm, should be the trigger for action..."
So, in the words of these emotionally controlled people, there should be no proof of anything to spend billions and billions of dollars to "fix" it...only the emotional "feeling" that there "might" be something wrong.
Sheesh.
Well, yes.
But that argument could be made for cooking, canning or refrigeration as well.
In and of itself, it brings nothing to the discussion.
Good question. I've heard that type of scare-mongering, too. I don't know much about it, either. I'm one of those die-hards that hunts, fishes, keeps laying hens, grows most of her own food and shops locally for meat when needed; Amish chickens, locally raised pork, etc. I try to stay at the TOP of the Food Chain when possible, LOL! ;)
My Mom's an X-Ray tech, and while she has a good first-hand understanding of the use and dangers of radiation, she finds nothing wrong with irradiated foodstuffs.
That is a very good point, but I don't think that would be the aim of irradiation.
The same standards that currently exist would apply to ensure cleanliness and healthiness.
It would just better protect things after they leave the supplier. It would extend the shelf life in nearly all cases, and people would be less likely to eat something that is spoiled and could make them sick.
"Cold Comfort Foods," LOL!
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