Food Irradiation

FOOD IRRADIATION

Step One:
During science class, we were talking about food irradiation. We were each assigned to research about this topic. Since Riena and I sat next to each other, we decided to be partners and talk about the cons of food irradiation, while Maria and Emily who sat at the same table decided to research about the pros of food irradiation. Once that was done, all four of us gathered up and started doing a debate. We surely used our research notes to help us during the debate.

Step Two:
There are a variety of problems with food irradiation. It kills the microorganisms that make the food less healthy but, at the same time, food irradiation destroys nutrients such as vitamin A, B-1, E and K. It takes away approximately 10 percent of health away and leaves 90%. Even by putting your fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator can lead to small losses in nutrition-this also goes for cooking too (it can make it lose some vitamins). Irradiation of food may change the molecular structure of the food which can create bad chemicals such as benzene and formaldehyde, and intaking a long term of these chemicals can lead to cancer or other disease-but also other ways for preserving foods, such as spraying with pesticides, are proven to be much more harmful for human health than irradiation!

Step Three:

Some pros of Food Irradiation that I heard from the other team were:

- Kills pesticides, bacteria and insects

- It doesn’t kill more nutrients than a conventional oven does

- Can allowed for food to be stored longer

- Radiation kills up to 90-99% of dangerous bacteria in the food.

- It is good for the environment

The cons Riena and I discussed:

- The levels that are allowed to be used do not kill the viruses

- Can only be used on a limited number of foods.

- Approve irradiation in food as flawed

- Accidents by people handling radioactive material is possible

- Does not kill all the bacteria and the bacteria that is not destroyed supposedly comes back stronger and even harder to kill

Step Four:

If I am seeing two containers in the super market (one is irradiated and the other is not) and I have to choose which one to pick, I would say that it depends on which type of food I would buy. If I’m buying strawberries from Serbia that are fully grown in the spring season in Serbia where there is no need for preserving, I would buy the non-irradiated strawberries. But if I’m buying bananas from South Africa, then I would surely choose the irradiated food because of the reasons I previously mentioned.

After our debate, we have concluded that irradiation of food is something that certainly doesn’t need to be forbidden but it is not necessary to be done with all types of foods. I believe that science did a good job by irradiating food because it’s a much healthier way for preserving food than by using other chemicals instead.

My thinking about food irradiation has changed quite a lot. Earlier I thought that the irradiation of food is a bad thing that can really harm both food and human health. While listening to Maria and Emily, I wanted to be on both sides because I couldn’t decide what’s better. Now I think that irradiation of food is really good when it is actually necessary and if it properly applied. I enjoyed the debate because I thought it was a really good idea to lead us to think further more about the irradiation of food. I really hope we discuss about the pros and cons of the future topics we will do in science class.

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