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Well they did it, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has decided to allow food producers to irradiate fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce, effective immediately.
Food irradiation is a processing technique that exposes food to electron beams, X-rays, or gamma rays. It is used to kill bacteria that cause food poisoning, such as salmonella, campylobacter and E. coli. According to Dr. Urvashi Rangan, an environmental health scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union, irradiating food “does not make it radioactive. But understand that, for example, the maximum dose of irradiation on meat is about 4.5 kiloGrays, which is equivalent to about 7 million chest X-rays.” Cough.
Originally posted by Cyberbian
Which brings up a very interesting question, When you have a massive radiation source, how do you detect the presence of tiny radiation sources within the larger field of radiation, to prevent their escape. I don't think you can.
I wonder if they will bother to monitor the exiting food for stray radioactive particles. Why would they, it would only introduce liability for failure to stop any. No monitoring, no evidence that any ever escaped, no liability.