14 Facts About Food irradiation

Food irradiation is the process of exposing food and food packaging to ionizing radiation, such as from gamma rays, x-rays, or electron beams.

Food irradiation improves food safety and extends product shelf life by effectively destroying organisms responsible for spoilage and foodborne illness, inhibits sprouting or ripening, and is a means of controlling insects and invasive pests.

Food irradiation is sometimes referred to as "cold pasteurization" or "electronic pasteurization" because ionizing the food does not heat the food to high temperatures during the process, and the effect is similar to heat pasteurization.

Gamma Food irradiation is produced from the radioisotopes cobalt-60 and caesium-137, which are produced by neutron Food irradiation of cobalt-59 and as a nuclear fission product, respectively.

Gamma Food irradiation is widely used due to its high penetration depth and dose uniformity, allowing for large-scale applications with high through puts.

Related searches

Additionally, gamma Food irradiation is significantly less expensive than using an X-ray source.

Cost of food irradiation is influenced by dose requirements, the food's tolerance of radiation, handling conditions, i e, packaging and stacking requirements, construction costs, financing arrangements, and other variables particular to the situation.

Food irradiation is used commercially and volumes are in general increasing at a slow rate, even in the European Union where all member countries allow the irradiation of dried herbs spices and vegetable seasonings, but only a few allow other foods to be sold as irradiated.

Food scientists have concluded that any fresh or frozen food undergoing irradiation at specified doses is safe to consume, with some 60 countries using irradiation to maintain quality in their food supply.

All commercial Food irradiation facilities contain safety systems which are designed to prevent exposure of personnel to radiation.

The European Union enforces its irradiation labeling laws by requiring its member countries to perform tests on a cross section of food items in the market-place and to report to the European Commission.

Each food approved for irradiation has specific guidelines in terms of minimum and maximum dosage as determined safe by the FDA.

Furthermore, imports into the EC are possible from third countries if the Food irradiation facility had been inspected and approved by the EC and the treatment is legal within the EC or some Member state.

Safety of Food irradiation facilities is regulated by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency and monitored by the different national Nuclear Regulatory Commissions.