Starting in the late 1980s and continuing through the 1990s, food irradiation was high on the agenda of the food industry and governments.
A series of contaminated food episodes in North America and around the world during that period had made people nervous about biting into their hamburgers, hot dogs and salads.
Grabbing the most attention was a 1993 outbreak of E. coli in burgers sold by a U.S. fast food company called Jack in the Box. Four children died in the Seattle area and hundreds of others were made ill.
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The public demanded changes to make their food safer, and one of the places industry and government looked for an answer was food irradiation.
However, the notion of subjecting food to radiation had a major public relations problem, and little was done to pursue or implement it.
As the years passed, irradiation seemed to slip below the radar, both for the public and for many food industry and consumer groups.
Fast forward to 2009.
Food safety has again become a major public concern, prompted in part by another series of recent health crises.
The list is lengthy: E. coli in spinach and lettuce sold through Taco Bell, salmonella in peanut butter, E. coli in beef from a New Jersey plant supplied by an Alberta company, and listeria in meat from Maple Leaf Foods.
As the public again demands action to protect its food supply, irradiation is once again gaining attention.
“Irradiation is probably an idea whose time has come and gone and now has come back again,” said Gordon Harrison, president of the Canadian National Millers Association.
The technology has been around for more than a century.
A long list of international and national health groups, including the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada, says it’s a safe and effective way to kill harmful micro-organisms and prevent spoilage.
Many experts say it could help reduce the estimated 5,000 deaths annually in the United States and 30 in Canada from food-borne disease.
Some say it could have prevented last year’s listeria outbreak that left 20 Canadians dead and hundreds ill.
But irradiation also has its critics, who claim it destroys nutrients in food, leaves traces of radiation behind and causes cancer.
Opinion surveys indicate consumers will accept labelled irradiated food products on their grocery shelves, but there has been a lack of political will to move aggressively on the file.
Over the years, a wide range of food has been approved for irradiation, more in the U.S. and Europe than in Canada, but little is actually irradiated in North America. It’s used mainly on imported herbs and spices in Canada and the U.S., and some fruit and vegetables south of the border.
Dennis Maki, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin, said the time is ripe to launch a major effort to gain public acceptance of irradiation in high-risk food.
“Radiation is the answer,” he said.
“It doesn’t make it radioactive nor carcinogenic, it doesn’t alter the taste or nutrition, and it will kill the micro-organisms.”
Only three to five percent of the food consumed by North Americans is irradiated, he added.
In an article published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, Maki called for routine irradiation of certain meat, processed food containing milk and egg products, and selected vegetables that are eaten raw.
He acknowledged that many of the estimated five million cases of food poisoning every year in the U.S. could be prevented by proper food preparation in restaurants and homes, but the unfortunate reality is that doesn’t happen.
“Again, radiation of this food will obviate the shortcomings in food preparation that result in illness.”
Perhaps the most telling point in support of irradiation, said Maki, is that virtually every major scientific group concerned with health and safety has endorsed food irradiation as a safe and effective public health tool.
In Canada, Health Canada is in charge of regulating food irradiation and approving applications from industry groups seeking to make use of the technology.
The department says on its website that while nothing can guarantee food safety 100 percent, irradiation greatly reduces bacteria and other micro-organisms that may be present.
Health Canada says irradiation serves several purposes in the food industry:
- Prevents food poisoning by killing harmful bacteria and parasites that cause food-borne disease.
- Prevents food spoilage by eliminating moulds, yeast and bacteria that cause food to spoil, as well as insects and parasites.
- Extends shelf life by slowing ripening or sprouting in fresh fruit and vegetables.
Health Canada also rejects suggestions that irradiation leaves traces of radioactivity in food, alters the nutritional content or changes the food in any way that would be harmful. However, it can produce a slightly different taste.
Under Canadian regulations, irradiated food must be labelled with a Radura logo, shown on the opposite page, and a written description.
Despite all the scientific, industry and government groups lined up in support of irradiation, many critics don’t buy it.
“I don’t accept as a matter of faith Health Canada saying that irradiation is safe,” said Bruce Cran, spokesperson for the Consumers Association of Canada.
“When it comes to meat and those types of products, we are certainly against it and have been for some time.”
He said the association hasn’t spent time talking about irradiation in recent years because it seemed to no longer be a public issue.
“Going back 20 years, we feel we won this battle a couple of times.”
Matthew Holmes, managing director of the Organic Trade Association of Canada, said food safety is the organization’s top priority, but he doubts irradiation is required to achieve that goal.
“We feel there are a number of adequate ways to ensure clean and sanitary food equipment and processing without irradiation,” he said.
Some critics feel widespread irradiation of food could be used to cover up more basic hygiene problems in the food processing industry.
Others complain about the cost of the equipment, estimated to be $1 million to $2 million, along with maintenance and operations, all of which would be passed on to the consumer.
Christopher Kyte, president of the Food Processors of Canada, speaks for many in the Canadian industry when he says Canada’s food supply is already safe, indeed safer than most other countries.
“The idea of radiating food for safety is not a big concern for our members,” he said.
