The Radura2001
Attached is my mutant version ;>) of the new symbol that will soon appear
in your food stores on those newly approved irradiated meats. This
ecofriendly looking label will appear on meats that have been exposed to
ionizing radiation, the kind of radiation, like gamma rays, with enough
energy to knock electrons off the atoms in your food.
This radiation kills the bacteria from the fecal matter introduced onto the
meat during the slaughter and processing of meat in our current processing
plants. The USDA euphemisticallys calls it "adulterated under insanitary
conditions.".
When foods are irradiated with gamma rays from cobalt-60, cesium-137 or
high energy electrons from an electron beam irradiator, the processors do
not have to improve the sanitatry conditions in their facilites that
contaminated the meat with fecal matter in the first place. The added
benefit is that feed lot operators can continue feeding the unnatural diets
with antibotics which produces low level diarrhea in the animals and the
acidic enviornment that allows these bacteria to exist and mutate.
But On The Bright Side
Unlike the recombinated DNA technology, rBGH - the Quicker Picker Upper for
milk cows which has been banned in Canada, our government in its
beneficence has decided to let us, the consumer, choose whether you want
to eat irradiated food - But Only For Foods You Cook Yourself. Restaruants
and fast food stores do not have to tell you if the food you eat there has
been irradiated or not according to the new regulations.
How much radiation will my meat receive?
By using units of radiation, the kGy, unfamilar to most lay people, the
USDA press release at
http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/1999/12/0486BG.htm tries to conceal how
much radiation your food will actually recieve. Let's use a new unit
called Chest X-ray. According to the USDA article, a Chest X-ray is 40
milliRems of radiation or 0.00000040 kGy (kiloGray). As the article states
"These figures are much lower than those that have been determined safe and
effective for use in food." So they have to hit your food with much higher
doses to kill the bugs. In fact, the approved doses of radiation are from
3.0 kGy for poultry to 7.0 kGy for frozen meats.
Translation, to kill the fecal contamination bugs in your meat, the meat
packers must expose your food to some 7 1/2 million to 17 1/2 million Chest
X-ray's worth of radiation! For your frozen meat, that is the radiation
equivalent to taking a chest X-ray ever hour of every day for the next
1997.72 years. No wonder the DNA and cell structure of the bugs are
shredded to the extent they cannot live. But remember, that same amount of
radiation is also shredding the DNA, vitamins and cell structure of the
food you eat as well. Think of it as pre-digestion ;>))
If you want to learn more about this issue from a non-industry source see
the links at
http://www.purefood.org/irradlink.html.
Mike Miller
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Feb 06 2000 - 12:00:18 EST