Green Health Watch

At the heart of a food irradiation plant stands a rack of 400 gamma-ray emitting cobalt-60 rods. This highly radioactive source is housed in a concrete chamber with walls six foot thick. Food is placed into the chamber to be irradiated. According to the London Food Commission, properly used, the process does not create radioactive food, but merely slows ripening (at low levels) or kills bacteria and pests (at higher levels). The food can then be transported further around the world or left longer in the warehouse or on the shelf. Waste is reduced. Profits increase and, if you believe food irradiation’s supporters, nothing in the food changes chemically or nutritionally.

It also increases the profits of the nuclear industry. The cobalt-60 rods are nuclear waste which would otherwise have to be held in special secure sites indefinitely.

Although irradiation can kill bacteria, it does not remove any toxins they have already produced, and was actually found to have increased aflatoxins, linked to liver cancer, by three separate studies in the ’70s
Vitamins A, C, D, E and K and some B vitamins (1, 2, 3, 6 and 12) are damaged by irradiation. The extent of the damage varies from food to food. Vitamins in fruit juice, for instance, are more vulnerable than vitamins in fresh fruit
Irradiation converts nitrates to nitrites, which are potent carcinogens
Pro-irradiation experts boast that irradiation reduces the need for dangerous food additives (Ed.- Aren't we always being told that these are safe?) but, in fact, additives are added to irradiated foods to control undesirable effects. Amongst these additives are sodium nitrite, sodium sulphite, potassium bromate, sodium tryphosphate and glutathione
The International Atomic Energy Authority, a keen supporter of irradiation, quotes several medical studies ‘proving’ the safety of irradiated foods. One study it appears to have missed is that published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in1975. Cited by cancer research specialist George L. Tritsch in expert evidence given to a congressional hearing in 1987, it tells of an Indian trial using children with severe protein deficiency.

Five children were given non-irradiated wheat, five wheat irradiated 2-3 weeks earlier. After four weeks, blood samples were taken. Those from the irradiated wheat group contained gross chromosomal abnormalities. Two weeks later another sample was taken. These showed a sharp increase in abnormal lymph cells. The trials were stopped immediately. The trials were then recommenced with wheat which had been irradiated twelve weeks before the trial. This time it took six rather than four weeks for the abnormalities to appear. The trial showed that irradiation had caused physical change which, at least in malnourished children, had led to pre-cancerous cell production.

This is ironic because (a) irradiation has been trumpeted as the solution to world hunger and (b) it has been adopted as the answer to safe food in many less industrially developed countries. The double irony is that many of these countries export irradiated ingredients to more industrially developed countries like the UK, where there is no obligation to list irradiated ingredients in processed foods. Currently, therefore, the only way to avoid irradiated food is to buy organic or locally-produced foods.

Many sanitary items are now increasingly being irradiated. These include medical disposable supplies, cotton balls, contact lens solution, feminine hygiene products and packaging materials. Then there’s make-up, wine corks and cask bladders, beehives (minus the bees), bottles and plastic containers.

A new form of irradiation is being introduced, called ‘cold pasteurisation’. Electron beams are used to pasteurise milk and juices. It is planned to replace electron beams with X-rays in the near future.