Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Im agreeing to food Irradiation

Food is irradiated to provide the same benefits as when it is processed by heat, refrigeration, freezing or treated with chemicals to destroy insects, fungi or bacterial that cause food to spoil or cause human disease and to make it possible to keep food longer and in better condition in warehouses and homes.
Because irradiation destroys disease-causing bacteria and reduces the incidence of food borne illness, hospitals sometimes use irradiation to sterilize food for immuno-compromised patients. Food irradiation is also defind as energy moving through space in invisable waves. these short waveslength are known for the capablitity of  of damaging microorganisms such as those that contaminate food or cause food spoilage and deterioration. They have found irradiation to be a controlled and very predictable process.

 Those foods need to Irradiated because people use these foods the most and cook with is mostly every day. Pizza places use flour to make bread and they use the bread for the pizza and if they that flour had mold they wouldn't be able to use it and they wouldn't be able to cook anything and they going to lose money because people like to get pizza. Fruit stands need to make sure there fruits are fresh because people wouldn't wanna but anything and they going to be mad and they might go to a different place to get what they need 


  Foods are not changed in nutritional value and they are not made dangerous as a result of the irradiation. The food is slightly warmed. Some treated foods may taste slightly different, just as pasteurized milk tastes slightly different from unpasteurized milk. If the food still has living cells, (such as seeds, or shellfish, or potatoes) . Irradiated foods need to be stored, handled and cooked in the same way as unirradiated foods.  The safety of irradiated foods has been studied by feeding them to animals and to people. These extensive studies include animal feeding studies lasting for several generations in several different species, including mice, rats, and dogs.


   Killing effect of irradiation on microbes is measured in D-values. One D-value is the amount of irradiation needed to kill 90% of that organism. I'ma show you a example it takes 0.3 kiloGrays to kill 90% of E. coliO157, so the D-value of E. coli is 0.3 kGy. These numbers can be added exponentially. It takes two D (or 0.6 kGy in the case of E. coli) to kill 99% of the organisms present, 3 D (or 0.9 kGy) to kill 99.9% and so on. Thus, once you know the D-value for an organism, and how many organisms might possibly be present in a food, the technician can estimate how much irradiation it will take to kill all of them. For example, if you think that a thousand E. coli O157 could be present in a food, then you want to be able to treat with at least 4 D, or 4 x 0.3 kGy, or 1.2 kGy. 


  Microbes present in the food are irradiated, the energy from the rays is transferred to the water and other molecules in the microbe. Energy creates transient reactive chemicals that damage the DNA in the microbe, causing defects in the genetic instructions. it can repair this damage, the microbe will die when it grows and tries to duplicate itself. Disease-causing organisms differ in their sensitivity to irradiation, depending on the size of their DNA, the rate at which they can repair damaged DNA, and other factors. It matters if the food is frozen or fresh, as it takes a higher dose to kill microbes in frozen foods.

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