What is food irradiation?

What is food irradiation?
Food irradiation is a promising new food safety technology that can eliminate disease-causing germs from foods. Like pasteurization of milk, and pressure cooking of canned foods, treating food with ionizing radiation can kill bacteria and parasites that would otherwise cause foodborne disease. Similar technology is used to sterilize medical devices so they can be used in surgery or implanted without risk of infection. The food that NASA astronauts eat has been sterilized by irradiation to avoid getting foodborne illness in space. The effects of irradiation on the food and on animals and people eating irradiated food have been studied extensively. These studies show clearly that when irradiation is used as approved on foods:


disease-causing germs are reduced or eliminated

the food does not become radioactive

dangerous substances do not appear in the foods

the nutritional value of the food is essentially unchanged
Irradiation is a safe and effective technology that can prevent many foodborne diseases.
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