Irradiation of Food Induces Radioactivity: Government Claims That It Doesn’t Are Lies

We are routinely told that irradiation can’t possibly make food radioactive. It’s a lie.

The official stance of both the US and UK, that radiation is not induced by the process, is false. It is, in fact, an outright lie.  It has been understood for decades that irradiation of food renders it radioactive. The question isn’t whether it happens. The question is how serious the health risk is.

The fact that food irradiation carries significant and well-documented danger to health should have resulted in it being stopped before it was ever implemented. That it hasn’t tells us all we need to know about the purpose of our regulatory agencies.

Ultimately, though, what’s more upsetting is learning that we’ve been outright lied to about the most fearful aspect of food irradiation. Radioactivity is induced by it.

Documentation for Irradiation-Induced Radioactivity

No less an authority than the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has clearly documented that irradiation of food induces radioactivity. Medical journals have documented it. The FDA regulates the acceptable amount of induced radiation in food packaging, all the while claiming that the food itself isn’t affected!

While documenting that irradiation induces radioactivity in food, the IAEA’s report⁽¹⁾ tries to diminish its significance by comparing it with background radiation. However, it isn’t a matter of one or the other, background radiation or irradiation-induced radiation. It’s the sum of both that matters—not to mention other sources that should be added in, such as medical test devices and airport scanners. They are all additive.

Another problem is that food is ingested. Foods that have become more radioactive through irradiation are taken into the body and become part of the cellular makeup. Therefore, the effects of irradiation-induced radiation in foods may be worse than other sources.

Should We Be Concerned About Irradiation-Induced Radioactivity in Food?

Exactly how bad is irradiation-induced food radioactivity? That’s a good question—one that is studiously ignored by the powers-that-be. After all, it’s rather difficult to do research on something when the official stance is that the problem doesn’t exist.

Of course, we do know that many studies documenting harm from irradiated foods have been done. Interestingly, much of that harm tends to coincide with the sort of damage done by radiation.

FDA Once Banned Irradiation

In 1968, the FDA ended the practice of irradiating bacon for military personnel after learning that lab animals fed irradiated food died early and suffered from a rare cancer, other tumors, reproductive problems and inadequate weight gain. All of these are associated with radiation exposure…yet the FDA now says that irradiation doesn’t harm foods or make them radioactive.

EPA’s Gambit

This is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) answer to the question⁽²⁾, Can irradiation make food radioactive?

No. Food does not come in contact with radioactive material during food irradiation, and cannot be contaminated this way. Radiation that is too energetic, however, can disrupt the energy balance in the nuclei of food atoms, making them unstable (radioactive). This is known as induced radioactivity.

Electron and x-ray beams can be energetic enough to induce radioactivity. To prevent induced radioactivity, FDA limits the energy of the radiation from these sources to less than 4 mega-electron volts. Radiation from cobalt-60 sources is not energetic enough to induce radioactivity.

Isn’t that cute? First, the EPA answers with an unequivocal no, stating that food “cannot be contaminated this way”. Then, they go on to describe two methods that can induce radioactivity, while claiming that the FDA’s limits prevent it from happening. But, that simply is not true. The IAEA’s report clarifies that fact.

Irradiation Methods

There are three methods of irradiating food: gamma rays, x-rays, and electron beams. At first glance, it would seem that electron beams and x-rays would be preferable, since they are not radioactive. The issue, though, isn’t whether the tool used to irradiate foods is radioactive, but whether it results in radioactivity in the food. Remarkably, there is some information to indicate that x-rays produce more radiation in food than the other methods.

Comparisons between irradiation methods can be difficult. Further complicating things is that different elements in foods react differently. Iodine, for example, is a necessary nutrient that is easily made radioactive, and is the element on which most emphasis is placed. Because different foods respond in different ways, absolute conclusions about all foods and all methods of irradiation can’t be made. However, some generalities can be drawn.

A paper entitled Report on the Safety and Wholesomeness of Irradiated Foods (The Report) was produced in 1985 by the Advisory Committee on Irradiated and Novel Foods, a UK agency. It was reviewed by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), which concluded the following:

• The Report clearly stated that gamma rays and high-speed electrons can induce radioactivity in food.
• Though The Report set up a scenario it defined as worst-case and stated it should be dismissed, no evidence for the underlying assumptions was given.
• The Report uses fish and shellfish as the standard for determining the natural radioactivity of foods, but never explains why they were selected or how they compare with other foods. Since fish and shellfish are not major parts of most people’s diets, this is suspicious.
• The Report assumes that the consumption of irradiated foods will be small in most people. That, though is becoming less true every day. Refusal to consider irradiation as a large portion of diet is suspicious.

The OCA’s commentary went on to discuss a study produced in India during the ’70s that found “significant numbers of intrauterine deaths and depression in immune response in rats and mice fed freshly irradiated wheat”, and “an increase in polyploid cells, a chromosomal abnormality, in the bone marrow of rats and mice and the blood of children and monkeys fed freshly irradiated wheat.” This is the sort of damage that tends to be found in radiation victims.

Wheat that had not been irradiated or had been irradiated at least three months earlier did not result in the same harm. This definitely points to irradiation-induced radioactivity as the cause, rather than other changes in the wheat, because radiation diminishes with time.

One of the researchers, Dr. Vijaylaxmi, a geneticist who later became a staff member of the University of Texas, stated that he

…strongly suspects there are radiolytic products which are problematic in these studies.

In regard to polyploid cells, we do not know the significance of these cells so we expressed a note of caution, but scientific studies have shown that they are associated with cancer—whether polyploid cells cause cancer or cancer produces polyploid cells, we don’t know. But we do know the significance of intrauterine death and depressed immune response and I would consider that a strong factor in whether one chooses to eat irradiated food. If the choice was given to me, I wouldn’t eat irradiated food.

How Bad Is Irradiation-Induced Radioactivity?

At this point, it’s difficult to give a definitive response to how bad irradiation-induced radioactivity is. While there is evidence that clearly shows the risks associated with the procedure, how much of that risk is caused by radiation is difficult to ascertain:

• The harm produced by irradiation can be quickly seen in this document produced by the Organic Consumers Association, What’s Wrong With Food Irradiation, With Sources for Each Statement (PDF format).
• This study, Effect Of Gamma Irradiation On Some Characteristics Of Shell Eggs And Mayonnaise Prepared From Irradiated Eggs, though technical, clearly shows that several aspects of eggs are changed by irradiation. Volatile basic nitrogen is decreased. Free fatty acids tend to decrease, especially at higher levels of radiation. Viscosity of egg whites is changed dramatically; they become almost like water.
• In The Irradiation of Eggs: The Details, Public Citizen discusses risks in food irradiation along with the discussion of eggs.
• In The Problems with Irradiated Food: What the Research Says, Public Citizen cites studies that show reproductive problems and cancer in mammals, fatal internal bleeding in rats, fetal and embryo deaths in mice, radioactivity in rat organs and feces, fruit fly mutations, fatal vitamin E deficiency in rats, chromosomal damage to human cells, and the formation of a toxic chemical in fat-containing food with no evidence of that chemical existing in non-irradiated foods.

How many of these effects are the result of irradiation-induced radioactivity? We don’t know, though much of it is similar to known radiation effects, especially mutations, bleeding, reproductive problems, and cancer.

Though we don’t know exactly how much of the harms caused by irradiated foods are the result of radiation and how much is the result of damage to the foods. However, why should we care which is the cause? Irradiation does induce radioactivity in food. Irradiated has been documented to cause harm, and much of that harm is similar to the sort known to be caused by radiation.

In light of being consistently lied to about irradiation-induced radioactivity, as can be seen in this list of government and agency quotations, until we have legitimate documentation proving otherwise, the rational assumption is that the procedure is causing great harm, and most likely from the worst imaginable cause: atomic radiation.

Sources:

• ⁽¹⁾Natural and induced radioactivity in food (IAEA report – PDF format)
• ⁽²⁾Radiation Protection, Food Safety (EPA page on food irradiation)

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