[palmer]

Food that requires irradiation should not be eaten, irradiated or not. Without high intensity farming, unsanitary slaughtering, or long storage and transportation times, irradiation would not be necessary. Federal food subsidies, including irradiation, should be abolished, they bias the market away from fresh, locally grown foods.

[volchef]

Are you a local produce farmer? My husband and I are both chefs and generally support the buying of locally grown and raised vegetables, eggs, meat products, etc.....however, in many parts of the country there is limited access to these products which makes mass farming a necessity. I would like to see more strict enforcement of slaughter practices and of shipping standards (aka making sure those refridgerated trucks actually work), but even after all that people are still going to get ecoli from ground beef. I for one like my burgers juicy rare, but order them medium these days because of ecoli. I think irradiation could help this.

[Physicist]

Without high intensity farming, unsanitary slaughtering, or long storage and transportation times, irradiation would not be necessary.

Superstitious nonsense. I suggest you watch the PBS series, "Surviving the Iron Age", where 17 volunteers lived in a reconstructed Celtic village, in the manner of Iron Age people. One of the main lessons of the experiment is that they were all chronically sick from spoiled food. One family had to leave because of it, and health inspectors nearly shut the project down.

Modern farming, storage and transportation techniques prevent deaths and illnesses from food-borne pathogens.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Food that requires irradiation should not be eaten, irradiated or not. Without high intensity farming, unsanitary slaughtering, or long storage and transportation times, irradiation would not be necessary."

Absolute BAH-LONEY. Food irradiation is a major breakthrough in preventing food losses by spoilage. Food will last many times longer WITHOUT the need for refrigeration, and also without significant loss of nutrients.