Consumer choice: Irradiated or not irradiated.
After a ten-year campaign by industry food groups in Canada, Health Canada says that irradiated ground beef could be sold in Canadian stores by the end of Summer 2016. It will or should be clearly labeled as such.
According to a web page on Health Canada it says it will add fresh and frozen ground beef to its list of foods that are permitted to undergo radiation treatment. Health Canada also stresses that it will allow the food industry to do this but not require it to. I have read that already onions, potatoes, wheat, flour, whole wheat flour and whole or ground spices and dehydrated seasonings are approved in Canada for irradiation and sale. I’m not saying that all these foods are irradiated but one may want to ask questions and pay an awful lot more attention to the labels folks.
Major players in the food industry, including the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) has long sought irradiation to prevent the spread of E-Coli and other dangerous bacteria in food. It has taken this long to get anywhere mainly because of public opposition.
Food irradiation is defined as applying ionizing radiation to food, similar to X rays. It is claimed that this improves the safety and prolongs the shelf life of the food. Opponents to food irradiation claim that irradiation can result in loss of nutrients, chemical components can be altered, dangerous toxins already produced may not be altered and also that bacterial mutations may occur.
Excuse my pun but my gut feeling is that this is more about money than it is protecting the consumer. Meat packing plants have regularly been in the news for all of the wrong reasons and I’m guessing that an irradiation process at the plants will significantly cut costs. And similarly right up the supply chain. In journalism the mantra, “follow the money,” usually proves true.
My wife and I both have food hygiene certificates and it is possible, nay even preferable in our eyes, to respect the fresh food you have and treat it right and safely. It’s not rocket science.
Organisations say that Canada’s consumers are already to accept irradiated food. Well, not this puppy. I read the labels and if I see that I’m going to stay well clear. There is something about the very word radiation that bodes ill. It is associated with well killing things either as a weapon, pollution or in the positive, killing cancers. However, the operative word is still kill. Why would I want to knowingly put anything in my body that I know has been subjected to radiation?
At the end of the day it will be the consumer that decides. If people don’t buy irradiated foods then the stores will stop selling it quick, fast and in a hurry. If the majority of people do, then other consumers will have to be much more discerning.
Then we have another conundrum. How do we know when we go to a public BBQ or even a restaurant for that matter that irradiated foods aren’t being served, knowingly or unknowingly? Maybe the requirement for some sort of declaration would work. In the meantime, read the small print and decide for yourself.