HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why isn't radiation used to sterilize raw foods (like sashimi, eggs)?

19 points by apatheticonion ↗ HN
In an effort to avoid food poisoning from the more persistent pathogens (like salmonella, e.coli, and other such stomach-acid-surviving bugs), why aren't short bursts of radiation used to sterilize raw foods?

We go to great lengths to ensure a safe food supply, like processors washing chicken in bleach, washing eggs and massive doses of antibiotics. Despite these efforts, outbreaks are not uncommon. Even vegetables like bean sprouts and onions are commonly associated with outbreaks.

Made me wonder, why don't we just blast food with a short burst of radiation before/after packing?

Or if it is used, why isn't it more common?

55 comments

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xilinx_guy
High energy radiation breaks organic bonds all over the place, resulting in changes in color, taste, and nutrition, not to mention carcinogenic tendencies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5820857/

version_five
Can anyone vouch for that journal "International Journal of Medical Sciences"?

It seems like there's a lot of imaginary radiation==cancer stuff going around, it's not clear to me if this study is a one-of or if it's generally accepted that there is a danger. I suspect it's the former

thfuran
Why is that surprising? Grilling also produces carcinogens.
stevebmark
They cite quite a few other studies. The nutrition part about rats is really interesting, I had no idea radiation had such an effect on the nutritional content of food.
mrlonglong
Too dangerous, there have been incidents where people have overridden safety protocols and crawled into the "hot" space to fix issues and got themselves irradiated, usually with lethal results.
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I am sure there have been multiple orders of magnitudes of people who have died from food borne illnesses that would have been eliminated by irradiating the food.

In addition, I would bet that irradiation equipment is safer than tractors and other large scale industrial machinery used in the food industry.

oshirisuki
just speculation on my part (and an opinion, I don't know about you, but even if someone says it's safe to eat irradiated food, I would strongly prefer not to eat it)

I would imagine is difficult to avoid irradiating other things while in the process of irradiating food, also NIMBY probably? I don't think the FDA is trustworthy enough for everyone, so even if they say that it's safe, I think many people would prefer non-irradiated food, to the point of it not being worth it for companies to irradiate it

retrac
It is used, particularly with spices and fresh fruit, but sporadically for all kinds of food. As for why it's not universal:

There are some concerns about radiochemical effects, mostly regarding nutritional degradation, with extremely high doses such as might be used to sterilize raw meat for storage at room temperature.

While I can't source this now that I'm looking for it, I vaguely recall reading a survey about food irradiation acceptance; about half the respondents thought that irradiating food made it radioactive. There's much public apprehension, and confusion, with anything involving the word radation.

Similarly with public acceptance, one of the biggest reasons to use it would be to reduce the need for refrigeration. But consumer preference and familiarity makes it difficult to accept things like dairy that isn't refrigerated. UHT milk is available in my country but almost unknown. Even the UHT milk is sold refrigerated! I've suggested it to others before, such as for lack of refrigeration when camping. The reaction was ew, is that safe? Doesn't it need to be refrigerated? Hard to overcome that.

classichasclass
As a heavy milk drinker (I'll put away about three gallons of nonfat a week), my issue with UHT is the odd caramel taste it picks up from the heat treatment. On the other hand, my wife, who consumes way less dairy and hardly drinks milk as a beverage at all, has no problem with UHT milk pretty much anywhere I'd prefer fresh. It's been awhile since I looked at the state of irradiated milk, though I had an irradiated camp stew once and that wasn't bad.
_aavaa_
Brown cows for chocolate milk, and glow-in-the-dark cows for irradiate milk...

But heavy is an understatement, you must be drinking milk like eastern europeans eat bread, a few pieces with every course.

fbdab103
I am so intrigued by this. You are putting down ~1.5 liters of milk daily? Straight or as lubrication for some other dish (eg cereal)? Do you slam it all in the morning or spread throughout the day?

Edit: Do you think you have a strong stomach vs others? I had a milk-loving friend who developed kidney stones at ~25.

jsnell
1.5 liters per day doesn't sound like an absurd amount. The average milk consumption per person in Finland is 1.2 liters per day.
fbdab103
I am finding different (though remarkably high to this American) stats on Finnish milk consumption on the order of 100-130 liters/year = 0.3 liters/day, which is still incredible. That's higher than Finnish beer consumption at 72 liters/year.
classichasclass
I just drink it as a beverage. Never stopped since childhood. 8-) I'll eat some challenging things in my wife's opinion, but I don't consider my stomach particularly cast-iron or anything.
pornel
It's funny how subjective this is. I've been raised on UHT milk and to me the "raw" one is worse — less creamy and more sour.
classichasclass
Yeah, I think she's more accustomed to it as well, whereas I never developed a "taste" for it. I'll drink it, but I'm not fond of it.
jsnell
But doesn't UHT milk actually make the opposite case? I.e. that consumer preferences when it comes to food preservation are actually quite malleable.

In a lot of European countries UHT is the norm, in a lot of others it is virtually non-existent.

https://i.redd.it/399mldnbafs21.png

catherd
UHT milk hasn't caught on because it tastes only slightly better than reconstituted powdered milk. It is, however, cheap, and hasn't had trouble at all catching on in poor countries.
unmole
That must be why UHT milk is dominant in France.
ceceron
In Europe, UHT has caught on even in "wealthy" countries. In most shops you can buy both kinds, the UHT cheaper and the unprocessed as the more luxurious version. I think you're overstating the taste difference — as a child, I was often drinking really fresh milk (my grandma had cows). Later, most of my teenage life I was drinking UHT, and now I'm drinking the unprocessed refrigerated milk. I agree with you that the unprocessed one is better, but the difference isn't mind-blowing. I even know people that prefer the UHT taste.
mike_d
Just wanted to add on that it is usually referred to as "cold pasteurization" to avoid people freaking out over radiation.
TheRealPomax
Because as much as the ads yell about disinfecting, very little actually needs disinfecting in order to be safe for you.

And of course eggs are their own special story. They already come with a protective coating. The US and Canada just washes it off, actually making the eggs _less_ safe, necessitating refrigeration.

xupybd
Yeah, here in NZ we keep our eggs on the bench for weeks before using them. A quick test to see if they float in water before cooking them lets you know that they're safe.
TheRealPomax
It doesn't, because a float test doesn't tell you anything about bacterial infection, but yeah: in most places that aren't North America and don't wash their eggs, eggs will indeed keep just fine for at least two weeks.

Just smell it before you eat it, and you're good to go. Smells off? Bin it, and next egg. That smell off too? Time for a shopping run, it looks like we need fresh eggs.

Ekaros
And it is possible to have salmonella free eggs. Though getting to that point is hard and expensive. I'm not sure if irradiation is the correct way to attain it.
TheRealPomax
Even in the US, eggs have been salmonella free for decades now. There is literally no reason for North America to wash eggs anymore, other than "this is how we do it, it would cost us more to change than to just keep doing this".

Which ironically of course keeps people thinking that it's still in place because it's necessary when it really, really isn't. It hasn't actually been necessary for longer than most of us have been alive now.

Heck: lettuce has been a vector for salmonella several orders of magnitude greater than eggs =)

onion2k
Having sources of strongly radioactive material around public places like food factories would be a little dangerous.
spicymaki
Many people think GMOs, Bluetooth and 5G causes cancer no matter how much evidence you provide that it doesn't. It is unlikely they will accept irradiation even if it means a less healthy food supply.
snordgren
People will fight tooth and nail against new technology out of fear for cancer, but won't make the two adjustments that are most likely to save them from cancer: eat less processed food and exercise more. So evidently the risk of cancer is not the real reason for their fear.
giantg2
I mean, that's a pretty shallow statement and may even be misrepresenting their position.

GMOs themselves my not be linked to cancer. Higher levels of glycophosphate could have some risk.

There could be some unknown risks of cellphone/wifi/etc. It's not a bad idea to limit exposure where it makes sense (like scheduling your wifi to turn off during sleeping hours). What we do know about wireless radiation around these bands is that cellular glucose metabolism increases. What that means exactly is unknown. However, glucose metabolism and its larger system has links to everything from cholesterol production to influence on metastatic cancer spread.

You also imply that irradiated food would be healthier. That claim needs extensive research to back it up, which I haven't seen posted here.

spicymaki
You are right that people are concerned about glycophosphate (not arguing about that), but people are also concerned about GMOs themselves causing cancer.

e.g. https://www.greenmatters.com/p/gmo-side-effects

The unknown risks are unknown and we should not make policy decisions without evidence. People turn unknown risks into fear mongering campaigns.

giantg2
Sure, there are some people with unreasonable and unsupported positions, like thinking GMOs cause cancer. The person I was responding to had essentially strawmanned by picking the most extreme position to argue against and implying there were no risks to even contemplate.

"The unknown risks are unknown and we should not make policy decisions without evidence."

I wasn't talking about policy. I had mentioned basic personal steps someone could take to reduce exposure and provide other benefits as well (energy savings, security, etc).

But when we are making policy decisions we should look at evidence from both sides of the argument. Right now we know that it increases glucose metabolism and we know that glucose metabolism is linked to various issues. We also have studies showing there are some known risks, and many agencies say their safety is undetermined or needs more studies (CDC and IARC). I'm not proposing we make any policy against wireless technologies, but I also don't think we should promote their use without some caution and continued research.

Also, what was your link about? I didn't see them stating anything about GMOs causing cancer. In fact, they said there's no evidence of it.

chime
It's not as much of a benefit as one might think because the debris will still remain in the food. Gamma rays will kill the bacteria but not remove their remnants, which can cause other issues.
srcreigh
What is this debris? Where can I read more about this?
pvaldes
You are taking the point of view of the final user, but would be better to focus in the process.

Food workers will manipulate thousands of Kg of food each month. Even small doses of radiation from each one those packages would accumulate over time in this people, reaching a safety threshold. Radiation would be a logistic nightmare for the packaging company, requiring extensive periods of forced "holidays", healthcare checks and stopping the chain.

Plus the terrible publicity

WalterBright
X-rays and gamma rays do not induce radioactivity.
pvaldes
All that I can say is that there is a limit to the number of a radiography exposure that a worker can take in a year, so maybe there is some risk, somewhere, in using this machines. Maybe is more complicated in the real life with regulations. Dunno.
mensetmanusman
It affects the chemical structure of the food through cross linking.
samwestdev
Wouldn't UV Light suffice?
toomuchtodo
Doesn’t penetrate the surface such that ionizing radiation does.
giantg2
Something I haven't seen mentioned yet... I am guessing that common exposure to relatively innocent pathogens provides some immune system benefit. The outbreaks of the more serious stuff makes the news because it's so rare.
jareklupinski
I agree and I think we should be moving towards using this in the future.

As for why it's not happening today, with all the news about that one little vial of cesium that's gone missing lately... I can't imagine a nuclear regulatory agency being comfortable with letting every single farm receive shipments of radioactive material.

Not until we have some sort of GPS+Satcom method of tracking these vials point-to-point.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation - "As for transportation of the radiation source, cobalt-60 is transported in special trucks that prevent release of radiation and meet standards mentioned in the Regulations for Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials of the International Atomic Energy Act."

BerislavLopac
> processors washing chicken in bleach, washing eggs and massive doses of antibiotics

That's very much a US-only thing; in many (most?) other countries there are regulations about raising livestock that make this unnecessary and even (like the antibiotics) illegal.

crgwbr
Radiation is frequently used to sterilize raw foods. It’s generally in the infrared band, and the process is called “cooking.” :)