Food Irradiation Essay

The Necessity of Food Irradiation In order to understand why food irradiation is necessary, the definition must first be outlined and understood. “Food irradiation (the application of ionizing radiation to food) is a technology that improves the safety and extends the shelf life of foods by reducing or eliminating microorganisms and insects” (“Food irradiation is”, 2016). Eliminating microorganisms and insects is accomplished in a few ways. There are three energy sources for food irradiation. First is the use of the elements cobalt or cesium. These elements have radioactive properties that allow gamma rays to be emitted into food. The radiation from these elements ionize and prevents microorganisms from multiplying. X-rays are also

Humans are not the only consumers of the foods that we grow. There are several characteristics of living things. One of those characteristics is metabolism. Metabolism is the chemical process that occurs within a living organism in order to maintain life. Pathogens like bacteria, viruses and parasites want the same nutrients from meat, for example, that we do because they also have a metabolism that they have to maintain through the food that they consume (provided that the organism is a heterotroph-consumption of another organism for nourishment). Unfortunately, these bacteria that are vying for the same nutrients from the same food sources as humans, carry

The reason behind using these specific elements is behind their ability to generate ionizing radiation. When cobalt 60 goes through radioactive decay, “the spontaneous breakdown of an atomic nucleus resulting in the release of energy and matter from the nucleus” (Crouse, n.d.), that released energy can penetrate items and break down the chemical bonds. These chemical bonds are the DNA of microbes and bacteria. If a bacteria’s DNA cannot be transcribed it loses its ability to reproduce and therefore it dies. This accomplishes the goal of irradiation which is to inhibit the growth of microbes and bacteria to increase the shelf life of consumable foodstuffs. “The effectiveness of the process depends also on the organism’s sensitivity to irradiation, on the rate at which it can repair damaged DNA, and especially on the amount of DNA in the target organism”. (“The effectiveness of the”, n.d) The safety of irradiation has been proven through the Food and Drug Administration dated back to 1963. In subsequent years, more food items have been approved for irradiation. It has been proven to be safe because foods that have been irradiated present no health hazards for foods that have been irradiated at a dose of up to10 kGy (gray per kilogram). Foods that have been irradiated are not radioactive as the beam of gamma rays pass through the