Lou Dobbs, a Bumbling Idiot, takes on Food Irradiation
September 14th, 2008
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Lets get something straight: Food irradiation is not any more anti-consumer, anti-health or anti-freedom than pasteurization or washing your damn hands after going to the bathroom. In this case, Lou Dobbs, who can’t seem to even talk straight wants the US FDA prosecuted for not protecting the American people from food born illness. He’s even more furious that they’ve approved the wider use of food irradiation for fighting food born illness.
Apparently, if you listen to this report the reason for food irradiation being approved for larger deployment is that the Bush administration is on its way out and the big (evil) grocery companies have been pushing for it for years. This is all about profit, right? No. Actually it’s not. True, part of it is about profit, because irradiation is a fast and easy way of producing a product with longer shelf life (due to less potential for decay) and a safer one (always good for profit – getting sued for tainted food hurts the bottom line.)
It’s also about food safety and that’s ultimately why the FDA approved this. We’ve known how safe and effective food irritation is for decades, but it has always been something of an issue getting it fully deployed, likely in part because stupid people think it makes the food somehow radioactive. The FDA finally came to its senses after a rash of food born illnesses from produce and realized that “Hey, since we have this super effective, safe, economical and well proven tool that we’ve been holding back… maybe we ought to consider using it.”
What Mr. Dobbs does not understand is that it is impossible for any government agency to protect the public from 100% of foodborn illness. It’s simply not realistic to inspect, culture and analyze every fruit and veritable that is imported. Bacteria exists in natura and some bacteria is pathogenic. It can and does get on food from time to time. So how do we lesson the odds? High standards for cleanliness of food preparation helps a lot. Cooking food well helps too as does washing produce. Irridiation is also a major tool in improving food safety. It’s not 100%, because it does not always sterilize food 100% and the food can still be contaminated after the fact, but it helps reduce the probability of food contamination – it helps a real lot.
And by the way Lou, It is safe! You don’t need to listen to the FDA. I’ll tell you instead, okay, you bumbling idiot? Go read a book some time. And by the way, BPA is safe too… ass.
Also, here’s a rare find on Youtube: an actual sane explanation of something like food irradiation from someone who knows what they’re talking about!
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 1:45 am and is filed under Agriculture, Bad Science, Obfuscation, Politics, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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September 14th, 2008 at 1:55 am
he sounds drunk!
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September 14th, 2008 at 2:22 am
If you search Google News you’ll find that this decision has gotten a lot of people talking “IS IRRADIATED FOOD SAFE” or “FDA APPROVES FOOD IRRADIATION BUT SAFETY QUESTIONS REMAIN”
I’m surprised it was not previously approved for all produce! It was always approved for meats, grains, spices and other products but I guess they finally lifted more restrictions. I don’t see why it took so long. It should be allowed and encouraged.
There is one thing that is true though about the food quality and that is that it does have less of an aroma and sometimes less of a fresh ripe taste that comes partially from the aroma. People don’t realize that this is partially caused by microbial activity on the food that liberates the odor. The simple way to fix this is to open the package for a little bit and allow it to repopulate with bacteria. This probably wont be an issue with produce though since it’s out in the open after arriving at the store, so it won’t be free of microbes but just those from when it was grown.
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September 14th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Someone should remind them that the chemical changes and the breakdown of nutrients and creation of “unnatural” compounds by irradiation of food is very minimal and at the doses normally used it is negligible.
There are other ways of sanitizing foods and killing potential pathogens. The other ways include ozone treatment, dehydration, carbon monoxide packaging, heat pasteurization, ultra-high temperature pasteurization. Those methods produce much more chemical breakdown and alteration to food from the natural state. -and don’t we all know that natural means good for you
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September 14th, 2008 at 5:57 am
“They have been lobbying for food saft… irradiation.” (about 3 minutes 30).
This says it.
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September 14th, 2008 at 6:09 am
The sheer amount of idiocy in the comments to that last video is terrifying. Nuclear power, WiFi and microwaves are dangerous; Amygdalin cancer conspiracy, raw food morons(humans are ALIVE, we need LIVING tissue, otherwise it has no nutritional value), the government orchistrated the contamination of that spinach to push food irradiation on us, microwaves are equivalent to gamma rays.
All that garbage in only two pages of comments; it’s like the word radiation calls like a siren to morons of all kinds.
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September 14th, 2008 at 8:46 am
We need “LIVING tissue”? Geez, I never knew that. And here I’ve been eating cooked and pre-killed steak. I should have just taken a bite out of a cow… yeah, a cow would probably be a better idea than a bull. Do cows kick like horses can? I bet they would if I tried to take a bite out of one. Most of the plant stuff I eat is also fully dead for a long time and some of it has even been ground up and/or cooked. I guess one could make a viable argument on what constitutes life and claim that a seed or a viable root is alive, but it won’t be after I chew it..
So I guess I kill everything I eat. Gasp. I’m a murderer!
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September 14th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Hang on! Is it genuinely the case that people are afraid of food irradiation? Just when you think fuddites couldn’t get any more stupid. They’ll be banging on about flourescent lights next.
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September 14th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Josh said:
Actually Josh, there is some concern about the mercury content of compact flourescent lights eventually contaminating landfill sites and leaking into water tables.
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September 14th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
In most radiation treatments applied to food, dosages are no more than 10kGy and generally much less, however in South Africa they been been using 45KGy to treat unrefrigerated prepared meat products for years without any reports of health problems.
Magic Donuts said:
Most of the radiation processing for soft fruit is done for insect disinfestation at rates of less than 1KGy, thus there is little chance that a significant amount of the odor producing flora will be eliminated.
Half the problem with the public’s perception of this process in general is (as in all things nuclear) that most of the issues and problems that are waved about by those that oppose it, came up in the Fifties and early Sixties, when the treatment was being developed. At that time one of the thrusts of the research was treating foodstuffs for very long storage, more for strategic stockpiles than commercial use, and yes taste and other aesthetic parameters were given secondary consideration. However, even at the time it was recognized that these were going to be important in any deployment in the open market.
Soylent said:
And that is exactly what happened, which is why we did without this valuable treatment for several decades. Note however that the fear of food poisoning trumps radiation fear – a few outbreaks of Listeria, like the one we had in Canada recently, is going to make radiation look like microwaving to the public.
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September 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
DV82XL said:
Right, but in this case, we’re talking about the issue of food-born pathogens so not just insects are the issue. Of course, the dosage of the radiation is going to be an issue in to what degree the food is disinfected. At doses of 40+ KGy, the food is effectively sterilized, as not even the most hearty bacteria can survive that level of exposure.
However, it should be noted that not all bacteria have the same radiation tolerance and as a general rule, those which reproduce the fastest and have the highest metabolism and general activity are more sensitive. E. Coli, for example, happens to be very sensitive to radiation. It only takes about 100 gray to completely destroy a full culture of the bacteria. Salmonella, listeria and other bacteria which are common in food contamination cases are also not very tolerant of radiation.
This is, of course, excellent news, because it means that a 10kGy treatment, which is pretty low, is going to generally be very effective in the control of food born illness. Even doses of 1 kGy will generally be quite effective.
It should be noted that, as some critics have pointed out, the irradiation does not guarantee safety 100%. Since the levels for most produce are relatively low, it is possible (though unlikely) that some pathogenic bacteria may be able to survive, especially if it’s on the inside of a large load of material or something like that. Also, if it were contaminated with a virus, the levels might not be high enough to destroy it. If you wanted to be absolutely sure you had killed off any potential pathogens you’d have to use very high levels (which is sometimes done for hospital foods) to be certain it was completely sterile and nothing could have survived.
But.. nothing is 100% effective. This is not a magic bullet. But it helps, a real real real lot. It could potentially reduce food born illness by more than 99%.
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September 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Why is it assumed that there is something sinister or dangerous because there is a for-profit business or industry that supports something? They make it sound as if this is something dangerous and questionable because the big bad food companies have been pushing for it. While I’m not going to say that it must be good because a big company supports it, it is an equal fallacy to think it must be bad because a big company supports it. The food industry in this case is likely motivated by things which are entirely in the public interest.
Food companies would like to deliver the safest product they can and have an uncontaminated product. Food contamination means bad publicity, recalls, government action, lawsuits, product being thrown out etc etc etc. Bad for the bottom line. No company wants to have to have their product recalled and pay for it because some consumers got badly ill. That’s not good for business in any way. Food companies also would like their product to have a good shelf life and not have to throw it out because of spoilage, which is not necessarily anti-consumer either.
What’s the issue? Food companies and the FDA say it’s safe so it must not be? If a food company told you the sky was blue would you then assume that the sky must be some other color because it could not possibly be true?
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September 14th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
drbuzz0 said:
True, but I was responding to the issue of smell on soft fruits. These products are currently only treated by radiation only to disinfest them, simply because pasteurization dosages do impact taste (and sometimes appearance) unacceptably. Leafy green vegetables are treated with gamma at values from 0.2 to 2kGy which is well below the threshold that impacts the sensory qualities of the food product. This is what I mean when I say that the critics are using old information to oppose this treatment. It’s the same story with the cancer causing chemicals they claim are being created; this can happen – at doses over 100kGy. Nobody uses these values on foodstuffs although it has been used in the past on raw materials for cosmetic products like clay. I don’t know if this is still the case, but no one was eating face blush in large amounts anyway.
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September 14th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
We’re talking about a number of different issues and levels. Steralization requires a very high dose of radiation, but disinfection does not. Disinfection does not destroy all bacteria but it does bring pathogenic bacteria to levels below that likely to cause infection.
Studies have shown that a dose of about 3 kGy is enough to effectively eliminate the E.Coli threat 100% of the time and to greatly reduce listeria, salmonella, parasitic protozoa and most other problem organisms. At about 4-5 kGy the effectiveness against common food born pathogens approaches 100%, if done properly. Even lower doses of about 1 kGy will be enough to disinfect E. coli and listeria from all but the most heavily contaminated products.
That is a very major improvement at very low levels. Ground beef, for example, has no significant changes at 8 kGy, so it is easy to disinfect and not change the product quality. Produce can be disinfected without much degradation too.
It’s been shown that if meat irradiation were standard it would eliminate most meat-based food poisoning.
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September 14th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Food irradiation is also very useful to prevent sprouting of potatoes, onions, garlic and kill a number of really nasty parasites like trichinella spiralis and tape worm.
Tapeworm is a lot nastier than people give it credit for. Infection by the eggs of tapeworms(either through poor hygien or poor access to safe, treated drinking water) can lead to life-threatening illness and brain damage(neurocysticercosis; tapeworm cysts embedded in the brain); it’s the leading cause of epilepsy in the developing world.
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September 15th, 2008 at 12:25 am
You all do know that there is a protectionist agenda underlying some of the opposition to food irradiation? Free use of this technology would open up the markets to even more imported foodstuffs that are now inhibited by health regulation through Quarantine Commodity Control which has the effect of driving the price up.
Oh and by the way, consumer attitudes and market response to irradiated food are actually rather good. Research by retail industry organizations shows that concerns about irradiated food is among the lowest for food safety issues. It’s not hard to see the day when the the Radura logo is a selling point with food shoppers, especially if there are a few more scares that get international attention.
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September 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
One of the concerns I have heard is that it breaks down nutrients in the food such as vitamins. It might do this, but I don’t think it would do it by very much at normal dosages, but maybe it would be noticable at the super high doses that is used for special hospital diets for weak immune systems or something.
I still don’t see the problem.
Lets say it reduces the vitamin content by a few percent. Is that a huge deal? Don’t most people in the industrial world get more than enough vitamins and nutrition in general anyway? I think the nutrition problems are usually not that we don’t get enough of something but we get too much of some things (fat, cholesterol, unneeded calories). So what would be the big deal of a vegetable has a little less in it when you’re already getting 300% of the daily dose needed? I don’t think there’s very solid evidence that having amounts much more than the needed amount has that much benefit. If food irradiation does cut down on nutrition and it drops the daily dose to 290% from 300% of a vitamin, then is that going to make a big difference?
I can only think it might for people teetering on the edge and they should be taking supplements anyway.
Maybe it would be more concern for third world countries but still I think it would be worth the small trade off if it improved food safety and shelf life and therefore allowed more to be used even if it meant a very small reduction in vitamins.
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September 15th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Giant Pulsating Brain said:
Hospital food that has been irradiated to sterilize it is treated at 25-35kGy. Detailed nutritional analysis has shown that there is no more reduction of complex vitamins than normal thermal processing. This from the book: “Food Irradiation” by V. M. Wilkinson, G. Gould, Woodhead (1989)
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September 15th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
The idea that there is reduced nutrition is completely bogus. Complex organic compounds start breaking down as soon as the plant dies and any form of processing will break down at lest a small portion of them. This includes cooking and also any kind of heat-based disinfection. In the case of radiation there will only be a tiny breakdown that you get anyway from anything. Nobody is going to get scurvy from irradiated food anymore than they would from eating lightly steamed foods. I guess if you follow the raw diet nutballss enough then anything you do to food up to and including spraying it with hot water will destroy it. But there’s no actual basis for that.
In addition to levels of up to 35 kGy being used for foods being given to the most weak and immunologically deficient individuals (with no ill effects of any kind ever observed) NASA actually uses some of the highest dose levels applied to any food (sometimes 50+ kGy) to assure they are 100% sterile of even the most radiation tolerant organisms for long term storage and safe use on the space station or other space flight applications. A stomach bug can become a big big deal in orbit and you can’t afford to throw away food that goes bad when getting more there means a space launch. Decades of experience shows it to be 100% safe. I could easily see how levels that high might make the food seem a little bit bland or take away some of the smell, but nobody ever said that space foods are a culinary masterpiece to begin with.
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September 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
This has to stop.
The word “profit” is rapidly on it way to becoming another obscenity. The Left has gotten practically every word that might make someone feel bad categorized under hate speech, and with their opposition to any form of enterprise, private business, or self-sufficiency whatsoever, soon words that have any sort of positive meaning for the self will fall under some quack category… maybe “intolerance for the less fortunate” or something, as if everything in the world has come about by chance and not by someone’s honest effort or cunning brainwork.
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September 17th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Yeah. I agree. And as it has been noted, profit does not necessarily hurt the end user and often helps. Companies have a profit-driven incentive to provide safe food. Contaminated food is bad for the bottom line. Recalls are expensive and so are lawsuits and bad publicity doesn’t help either.
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September 11th, 2009 at 2:28 am
Thanks but no thanks on food radiation. No way for me. I want the food to be actually clean and safe and not just have it nuked to try to kill off the deadly bacteria and in the process god knows what other nutrition is killed. Your body needs live vitonutrients from fresh clean natural food to give you life and keep you healthy.
I want the right to refuse this zomby food and I think you will be singing a new tune when you are all full of cancer.
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September 11th, 2009 at 3:45 am
Jessx said:
So naturally you eat all your food raw since cooking with heat kills pathogens and reduces some of the nutrition as well.
The depth of your ignorance is only exceeded by your stupidity.
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