<Food irradiation *can* result in some loss of vitamin content, and it *can* result in the creation of free radicals in the food, which are not good for us, and may have some role in causing cancer.>
David, this statement in itself is significant. I have read lots of articles promoting irradiating food, and was looking to see if it could create free radicals, and have never read anything of the sort.
I was listening to NPR today, and there was a discussion of genetic manipulation of produce, for example putting genes from a fish that swims in the Arctic into tomatoes to prevent against frost damage. The gist of the article was that while Americans are fairly flexible about genetic engineering, the Europeans are not. An example was cited where an English supermarket chain was contracting with Canadian farmers instead of American ones to grow and process soybeans, because the American ones were bioengineered.
I was under the impression, however, that Europeans did not have similar qualms about irradiated food. Am I mistaken? I know that the antibiotics and hormones we treat our meat animals with are forbidden over there.
I think I would rather have worms in my spices than have them irradiated, but I realize it is a personal choice. A small but growing trend in America is to shop at local farmers' markets, where the produce is mostly organic and from the area, so that it is very fresh. This seems to be very healthful, and used to be the way most people ate a long time ago. Do they have those in Hawaii yet? |
