NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17933793/
The proposes relaxing labeling rules for irradiated food. Now companies can call irradiated food "pasteurized" if they can "prove" that irradiating foods destroys germs and bacteria same as the pasteurization process. The head of some really long named section of the FDA then argues that allowing companies to misclassify irradiation as pasteurization or anything but irradiation would make it clearer to customers what happens.

Big Business: Whatever astronomical number they are on now
the American consumer: 2

Are you under the mistaken impression that food sterilized by irradiation is somehow radioactive?

Really?

Pasteurization (or pasteurisation) is the process of heating liquids for the purpose of destroying viruses and harmful organisms such as bacteria, protozoa, molds, and yeasts. The process was named after its inventor, French scientist Louis Pasteur. The first pasteurization test was completed by Pasteur and Claude Bernard on April 20, 1862.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization

Irradiation obviously isnt *heating a liquid*, hence the term pasteurization shouldn't be used here.

Silly silly FDA...

Pasteurization (or pasteurisation) is the process of heating liquids for the purpose of destroying viruses and harmful organisms such as bacteria, protozoa, molds, and yeasts. The process was named after its inventor, French scientist Louis Pasteur. The first pasteurization test was completed by Pasteur and Claude Bernard on April 20, 1862.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization

Irradiation obviously isnt *heating a liquid*, hence the term pasteurization shouldn't be used here.

Silly silly FDA...

Yes, it's not pasteurization.

But irradiation kills all the germs.

There's a hot dog on display at Natick Research Labs in a glass tube that has been there for over 30 years.

It was irradiated after being placed in the tube.

It looks like a fresh hot dog. Not that it has any nutritional value at this point, but there aren't any germs in there.

Irradiation is will not cause radioactivity, (unless there is some complex nuclear fusion/fission reaction taking place, causing unstable nuclei to be produced, along with a nuclear reactor type heat emission). It kills pretty much every microbe in there so is perfectly safe. It should not be called pasteurised however because pasteurisation is an entirely different process.

Yes, it's not pasteurization.

But irradiation kills all the germs.


My point is that pasteurization and irradition are two different processes, if people think that irradiation is bad, education on that subject is the key, not calling it something else entirely.



There's a hot dog on display at Natick Research Labs in a glass tube that has been there for over 30 years.

It was irradiated after being placed in the tube.
It looks like a fresh hot dog. Not that it has any nutritional value at this point, but there aren't any germs in there.

You mean a hotdog ever had nutritional value ? :D

Are you under the mistaken impression that food sterilized by irradiation is somehow radioactive?

QFT.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17933793/
The proposes relaxing labeling rules for irradiated food. Now companies can call irradiated food "pasteurized" if they can "prove" that irradiating foods destroys germs and bacteria same as the pasteurization process. The head of some really long named section of the FDA then argues that allowing companies to misclassify irradiation as pasteurization or anything but irradiation would make it clearer to customers what happens.

Big Business: Whatever astronomical number they are on now
the American consumer: 2

Knowledge about physics: -7

Are you under the mistaken impression that food sterilized by irradiation is somehow radioactive?

Really?

I've never more fully agreed with something you've said then right now. :cool:

Are you under the mistaken impression that food sterilized by irradiation is somehow radioactive?

Really?
Utter surprise about agreeing with something Eve Online said : 2
Utter surprise about quite how foolish the OP is : 1

I can't beleive no one has brought up 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes'. Have no lessons been learnt from Hollywood history?? :mad: :mp5:
...

That post up until the gun smilies : 1
Gun smilies in your first post : -45,000,008

Many foodstuffs require irradiation to grow. It's called "sunshine" :D

Knowledge about physics: -7
Respect for you and UVR: -10
Stupid posts for you, UVR, and a number of other people: +5

Irradiation doesn't cause radiation, but formerly the FDA required that foods be labeled irradiated if doing so caused a notable change in composition. So now some lobby or other is getting the FDA to remove the requirement of labeling foods irradiated and letting them use smoke and mirrors to pretend some other process was used on the food. That is why "prove" is in quotes. Then the FDA PR dumbass goes on to say allowing this misdirection is more informative to the consumer than the rule that required the companies to actually tell the consumer what they were doing to the food.

Maybe if you people stopped being self-absorbed asshats and read the article, you would see my point.

Respect for you and UVR: -10
Stupid posts for you, UVR, and a number of other people: +5

Irradiation doesn't cause radiation, but formerly the FDA required that foods be labeled irradiated if doing so caused a notable change in composition. So now some lobby or other is getting the FDA to remove the requirement of labeling foods irradiated and letting them use smoke and mirrors to pretend some other process was used on the food. That is why "prove" is in quotes. Then the FDA PR dumbass goes on to say allowing this misdirection is more informative to the consumer than the rule that required the companies to actually tell the consumer what they were doing to the food.

Maybe if you people stopped being self-absorbed asshats and read the article, you would see my point.

I do agree that the general public's idiocy regarding irradiated foods is no excuse to lie about whether something has been irradiated.

Irradiation doesn't cause radiation,

Gee, then maybe you shouldn't have used the word "radiation" in your topic then, huh?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17933793/
The proposes relaxing labeling rules for irradiated food. Now companies can call irradiated food "pasteurized" if they can "prove" that irradiating foods destroys germs and bacteria same as the pasteurization process. The head of some really long named section of the FDA then argues that allowing companies to misclassify irradiation as pasteurization or anything but irradiation would make it clearer to customers what happens.

Big Business: Whatever astronomical number they are on now
the American consumer: 2

DO you understand that there are various types of radiation?

The light emitted from your computer monitor is radiation.

OH NOES!!! My computer is going to kill me!!!

Get proof they are "Low-radiation". Since there's no standard on the term, it's low-radiation if it emits less than an unshielded reactor.

DO you understand that there are various types of radiation?

The light emitted from your computer monitor is radiation.

OH NOES!!! My computer is going to kill me!!!
You do understand that I realize you are a shitty troll and/or puppet, right?

The central heating in my house uses 'radiators' - should I be worried about cancer?
Yes.

Gee, then maybe you shouldn't have used the word "radiation" in your topic then, huh?
Maybe you should develop an argument.

Maybe you should develop an argument.

Hey, don't get mad at me because you got called on your shitty use of terminology.

Hey, don't get mad at me because you got called on your shitty use of terminology.

I don't think that he did use the word radiation in his OP actually.

I don't think that he did use the word radiation in his OP actually.
Except in the thread title.

I don't think that he did use the word radiation in his OP actually.

But it is in the thread title, and, has already been pointed out, not all radiation is harmful.

Irradiation doesn't cause radiation, but formerly the FDA required that foods be labeled irradiated if doing so caused a notable change in composition. So now some lobby or other is getting the FDA to remove the requirement of labeling foods irradiated and letting them use smoke and mirrors to pretend some other process was used on the food. That is why "prove" is in quotes. Then the FDA PR dumbass goes on to say allowing this misdirection is more informative to the consumer than the rule that required the companies to actually tell the consumer what they were doing to the food.

Maybe if you people stopped being self-absorbed asshats and read the article, you would see my point.
Both irradiation and pastuerization kill germs via heating them up, so they sort of have a point. But I think the biggest reason the industry wants to move away from the term "irradiation" is because of people like you who see "irradiation" and think "Chernobyl". It's the same reason politicians can't use the word "niggardly".

what the fda is saying is

we like irradiated food but the public doesnt. its hard to sell people food that is labelled "irradiated".

people love pasteurized food. pasteurized food sells very well.

let's call irradiated food PASTEURIZED so that people will be willing to buy it.

im not fond of the government legalizing deceptive business practices.

You do understand that I realize you are a shitty troll and/or puppet, right?



Oh please:rolleyes:

You should take the sand out of your vagina and actually try to learn something about this topic.

I can see why the FDA would remove labeling. Your average Joe doesn't know about irradiation and would assume irradiation = radioactive.

Irradiation doesn't cause any harm to food and decreases the chance of contamination.

The FDA are just a tool of big business anyway, hardly surprising that they'd pull bullshit like this.
Not that I mind eating irradiated food, I'm just worried about the jokes that Europeans will make 10 years from now when American children think that Louis Pasteur had something to do with the development of nuclear fission.

Hey, don't get mad at me because you got called on your shitty use of terminology.

I'm not. I'm mad because you have no fucking argument, which is why you are harping on the terminology.

what the fda is saying is

we like irradiated food but the public doesnt. its hard to sell people food that is labelled "irradiated".

people love pasteurized food. pasteurized food sells very well.

let's call irradiated food PASTEURIZED so that people will be willing to buy it.

im not fond of the government legalizing deceptive business practices.

Not only that, but they are saying that that makes it clearer for the consumer.

I can see why the FDA would remove labeling. Your average Joe doesn't know about irradiation and would assume irradiation = radioactive.
That would be a valid argument if they were just removing it as opposed to what they are actually doing and letting companies call irradiation something entirely different, like pasteurization.

OH NOES!!! My computer is going to kill me!!!


Yeah, I have noticed Clippy looking a little nutso lately.

Not only that, but they are saying that that makes it clearer for the consumer.


YEAH. thats kinda normal for this administration isnt it?

maybe haliburton does all the food irradiation in this country?

in any case, its WRONG to lie to people this way. if someone doesnt want to eat irradiated food, its their freaking right.

I'm not. I'm mad because you have no fucking argument, which is why you are harping on the terminology.

why would I bother to make an argument? Your point died the moment you wrote it down.

You want me to make an argument on an error?

Utter surprise about agreeing with something Eve Online said : 2
Utter surprise about quite how foolish the OP is : 1

Being a poster on NS General - priceless.

The main reason that the public in general, at least in the US is scared about irradiating food can be thanked to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). This is the food police that love to play the scare tactics that all food is going to kill u. From the theater popcorn to the chinese food take outs, to pizza, to cancer causing bacon and sausage, etc.

Likewise, bacteria provide yet another reason for avoiding meat. Food-borne illness has long been a major CSPI concern, but the group is strangely resistant to irradiation as a way of killing pathogens that would otherwise sicken or kill people. Is Our Food Safe? concedes that "most irradiated food will be safer than traditional food because irradiation kills bacteria and parasites that cause illness." But the authors implicitly endorse special labels on irradiated food, which reinforce the public's groundless suspicion of the process, and assert that "consumer confidence in the safety of food will depend on making food clean to begin with, not on irradiation as the final processing step."

Similarly, last fall CSPI's DeWaal responded to the sale of irradiated beef at Giant Supermarkets by declaring that "food irradiation is an end-of-the-line solution to a problem that should be cleaned up at the source," which would "eliminate the need for irradiation." She could not resist adding that "the biggest health concern about ground beef is neither the pathogens nor the irradiation, but the saturated fat, which promotes heart disease." DeWaal thereby implied that irradiation is a health concern, at the same time suggesting why CSPI might prefer that people continue to worry about food poisoning from ground beef.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28840.html

Its been an ongoing battle with CSPI for at least 20 years.

Just my thoughts

Vic

But it is in the thread title, and, has already been pointed out, not all radiation is harmful.

Oops, yeah I hadnt noticed that. :( I do know that not all radiation is harmful, considering that objects give out a form of radiations, that pretty much common sense.

Respect for you and UVR: -10
Stupid posts for you, UVR, and a number of other people: +5

Irradiation doesn't cause radiation, but formerly the FDA required that foods be labeled irradiated if doing so caused a notable change in composition. So now some lobby or other is getting the FDA to remove the requirement of labeling foods irradiated and letting them use smoke and mirrors to pretend some other process was used on the food. That is why "prove" is in quotes. Then the FDA PR dumbass goes on to say allowing this misdirection is more informative to the consumer than the rule that required the companies to actually tell the consumer what they were doing to the food.

Maybe if you people stopped being self-absorbed asshats and read the article, you would see my point.

I would, but whenever I make an intelligent post on NSG, I get ignored.

You know, isn't consumer choice supposed to be a tenet of Free Market Capitalism?

You know, the mechanism through which the market regulates itself and all such garbage spouted by Dubya and buddies?

Regardless of if you are personally fine with irradiated food or not, when they mislabel food, they take choice away and decide for you.

I find all the mindless puppets that say stuff like this is fine utterly disgusting.

If i want irradiated food, i should be able to go to my grocery store and say buy a pack of Irradios brand Milk.

If i dont, I should be able to go buy Pasteurized Milk, with the certainty that Pasteurized means, well, pasteurized, not "relabelling from whatever the fuck doesnt sell very well but we want to sell to stuff you might buy for some corporations benefit"

Both irradiation and pastuerization kill germs via heating them up, so they sort of have a point.
No, irradiation of food uses high frequency EM waves to irrevocably damage the DNA of microbes, thus preventing their replication and survival rates. Hence the term "cold pasteurisation".

@ Teh_Pantless_Hero - Perfect information requires perfect knowledge. Asking your average American to understand the difference between irradiation of foodstuffs and the damage caused by direct irradiation of humans is probably too much to ask. Increasing public awareness would have been the better option, but it's easier and far cheaper to allow this legislation. Maybe calling it cold pasteurisation or somesuch similar yet distinguishing name would be better?

No, irradiation of food uses high frequency EM waves to irrevocably damage the DNA of microbes, thus preventing their replication and survival rates. Hence the term "cold pasteurisation".
EM waves "irrevocably" damage DNA by heating up chemical bonds, which causes them to break. The difference between traditional heating methods and irradiation is that traditional heating methods heat the whole product, where irradiation is much more localized heating.

They're not the same, I agree, but they far more similar than compared to treating the food with an anti-biotic.