Is Irradiated Food Raw?

[Dan.Linehan]

The FDA approved the irradiation of fresh veggies yesterday.

Irradiated veggies also won't be labeled.


FDA Unleashes Mass Irradiation of Spinach, Lettuce and Other Vegetables

[Adrienne]

A couple years ago, i asked my grocer this, and they had never even heard of the word. They had to do some research and after about a month they came back with, they had no idea. I followed up a few times, but it was pretty much a dead end. I will ask again now tho!


does anyone know if they can do this to foods marked as organic?

thanks for the url Dan!

[ar81]

Use of radiation has several purposes.
If you use microwaves, you heat water contents of food.
Microwaves also kiils some microorganisms.
The use of radiation seems quite controversial because you relate it to cancer.
So it depends on how you define raw.

[The Cloud]

Food irradiation is probably done with gamma or X-rays, due to their ability to penetrate further than a few inches into food. There is no residual radiation after the process (this isn't a nuclear blast), so the only concern would be the alteration of the nutrients in the food. At the low levels used on vegetables, the nutrient loss is probably minimal, and some nutrients may even be enhanced. I'd say that if you are a strict purist irradiation probably counts as cooking, but it is much less drastic a change than that and likely only minorly reduces certain food nutrients.

Food Irradiation

[StellaBlue]

I dislike this.

[igmistro]

To me raw means unaltered/pure. Since both cooking and irradiation alters content/structure of food therefore irradiated is NOT raw.