by
Heidi Stevenson
Gaia-Health.com
Agribusiness
is polluting and destroying the food on which we depend . Irradiation
destroys nutrients and creates poisons. Despite claims, it’s largely
hidden from us. It exists for the benefit of Agribiz, not for our
health.
Food irradiation exists only because Agribusiness
exists. It isn’t to support your health. As we’ve seen recently with
outbreaks of food-borne disease, modern food production is innately
unhealthy. It utilizes monoculture, long term storage, and chemicals.
None of these are good for us, but all create enormous profits for a
money-hungry industry. The need to sterilize foods on a mass scale
simply did not exist until Agribusiness changed the nature of what we
eat.
Modern food processing and distribution is highly mechanized,
with tremendous pressure placed on employees to simply push things
through and money carefully spent to grease the palms of those who might
have called a stop to the madness. Agribusiness considers it
cost-effective to irradiate foods, which sterilizes them and
significantly increases their
shelf life.
The
efforts to utilize irradiation cover the spectrum from propaganda to
hiding it from the public. We’re told that food irradiation is safe,
effective, and doesn’t affect food quality. Let’s call these claims the
myths that they are and examine them.
Myth: Irradiation is effective.
Fact: This
is a very slippery claim. Yes, it does kill many infectious organisms,
in particular, bacteria. However, it does not protect against toxic
elements, such as the neurotoxin produced by Clostridium botulinum, the
bacterium that causes botulism. Killing the bacteria can create a sense
of security, though the actual disease cause is still present.
Irradiation’s
effectiveness against viruses is limited, so anthrax and hepatitis may
still survive after irradiation. Prions, the cause of mad cow disease,
are untouched by it.
Reinfestation of food is not prevented by
irradiation. In fact, it holds the potential of allowing worse
contamination. By eliminating most infectious organisms, beneficial ones
are also destroyed. This results in there being nothing to prevent
reinfection, allowing opportunistic bacteria and viruses free rein in
irradiated foods.
Factory farms are not healthy places. Pigs are
kept for their entire lives in horrifically unsanitary conditions, with
their droppings and urine left uncleared where they fall through the
cages, so they rot and release constant toxic fumes. Irradiation is a
means to avoid dealing with this inhumane and unhealthy situation.
Urine, feces, pus, tumors, and vomit are not removed by irradiation.
Myth: Irradiation is safe.
Fact: This is simply false. As documented in
Food Irradiation, Cats, and Doublespeak: Researchers Reinvent Reality, it’s well known to cause neurological damage in cats.
Irradiation
generates furans in food. Carbofuran is a member of this class. It’s
the poison, which is banned in Europe and severely curtailed in the US,
that FMC sells under the name of Furadan, as reported in
PsychoCorp #1—FMC Product Banned in U.S. Kills Lions in Africa. All furans are considered carcinogenic. Fruits, in particular, are affected by the generation of furans.
Public Citizen reports laboratory animals fed irradiated foods suffered
“a
myriad of serious health problems in laboratory animals that ate
irradiated foods, including premature death, fatal internal bleeding, a
rare form of cancer, stillbirths and other reproductive problems,
mutations and other genetic damage, organ malfunctions, stunted growth
and vitamin deficiencies.”
The growth of aflatoxin, implicated
in liver cancer in southern states, is stimulated by irradiation. The
World Health Organization considers aflatoxin to be a significant health
risk. Unique Radiolytic Products (URPs) are produced by irradiation.
These chemical compounds have not been well studied, but one group of
them, cyclobutanones, have been found to promote cancer and genetic
damage in rats, and to cause genetic and cellular damage in both rats
and humans. Cyclobutanones are radiation by-products of palmitic acid,
which is present in nearly all foods.
Other chemicals known to
cause cancer and birth defects are formed by irradiation, including
benzene, toluene, and methyl ethyl ketone.
Free radicals are
formed by irradiation. These are the targets of antioxidants,
supplements that are very popular now. Consider that some antioxidants,
such as vitamin A, are destroyed by irradiation. So irradiation holds a
double whammy against health—destroying the antioxidants that might help
resolve the chemicals it creates.
The journal,
Nutrition and Cancer reported in 2002 that colon cancer can be caused by a chemical compound found only in irradiated food.
Myth: Irradiation doesn’t affect food quality.
Fact: There
is extensive documentation for the loss of key nutrients from
irradiation of food. The Center for Food Safety reports that anywhere
from 2-95% of the vitamins can be lost. They cite losses of as much as
80% of vitamin A in eggs, 95% of vitamin A and lutein in green beans,
50% of vitamin A and lutein in broccoli, and 40% of beta carotene in
orange juice. Irradiation is also reported to destroy the B, C, E, and K
vitamins.
