I just read this objection to sterilizing food using radiations:
Bacteria are living cells. How can they be lethally affected - killed - and the cells of the food on which the bacteria may be living remain unaffected? Logically, we must assume all living cells are affected by high energy radiation. But what are those affects? And are any of the affects dangerous to human health?
I hope that slab of meat is already dead when they pass it through the machine...
Sigh...
2 comments:
you are a scientist. well, you should know how radiations affect all cells, whether living or not. and if that meat was not dead, it would have been by the time it reached your table. sterilisation doesn't mean wiping out bacteria from food, but simply killing them so they won't reproduce. therefore, eating a "slab of meat" means eating all the dead bacteria with it. dead. not toxic. dead. won't reproduce or grow.
fresh salad leaves cannot be "nuked" as their cells would be totally altered, too much to appeal would-be eaters. so they have to be washed. bacteria, most of them but not all, are wiped away.
quite different, isn't it?
I found your article about "Pills of... misunderstanding" very interesting, extremely well written, in line with the Giovanna I know too well.
"Nuking" food is a great piece of misunderstanding. or isn't it?
Well, that was my point. Eh eh eh... I should have been clearer, but I was just too annoyed with the statement (and its context - rejecting all the technology that the author didn't understand or agree with). The slab of meat is (hopefully) already dead when it is subjected to radiation. The bacteria are not, and the aim of the radiation is to induce all sorts of damage in them, so they die instantly or cannot reproduce anymore. The meat is already dead, so all these chances are not really interesting to our discussion. But unless radiating causes the formation of toxic compounds in relevant amounts - which I am sure the laws set in great details - then meat cells and bacteria cells will be happily digested in our gut to their basic components...
I can see the practicality of this approach in situations where washing the food isn't possible: think of all the neatly aligned ground beef packages in your favourite grocery store.
Enjoy!!!
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