Transcripts

Jim Motavalli:
The basic idea is to subject food to low levels of radiation, which kills bacteria such as E.coli, which is the major problem in food today.

Jim Motavalli, Editor of "E" The Environmental Magazine, which has an article on this subject in the July/August issue...

A third of the commercial spices in the U.S. are subject to irradiation and fifteen to eighteen million pounds of ground beef are. Every year something like ninety-seven million pounds of food are irradiated.

Should you be concerned about this? Maybe.

I don't think there's any hard evidence that food irradiation is dangerous - it's a gray area, it's an inconclusive sort of thing. It's like electromagnetic radiation from power lines, it's not very clear whether it's safe or not. There are studies that say one thing and studies on the opposite side that sort of indicate the opposite.

Food that has been irradiated has to be identified as such; either on the label or in the case of produce, on a placard next to the food in the store.

I think one of the things that comes out of this is that an educated consumer is a smart consumer. And the more you know about this, the more you learn about how to recognize what has been done to your food, the better. And if you're concerned about food irradiation, you should do as much as you can to educate yourself on the topic.

You can link to the "E" magazine website from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.