North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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On Dec 18, 2003, at 8:12 AM, loneroc wrote:

> Almost all dried spices are irradiated and have been so for many years.
> There is no requirement that these be labeled.  I think that besides
> eliminating mold and bacterial contamination, it allows the plant 
> material
> to avoid APHIS inspections and other related issues.  Doesn't bother 
> me.
> I've been irradiated during visits to the dentist and doctors' offices 
> for
> years.
I am glad that spices are irradiated.  They come from all over the 
world, were harvested with who-knows-what sanitation, and I don't 
always cook them prior to eating them.  (Dust some nutmeg on the 
eggnog, chew on a cinnamon stick, whatever.)  I'd prefer they be 
labeled so I can be sure of buying the irradiated ones, but I guess 
that's most of them, so maybe it doesn't matter.


> I would not purchase irradiated foods in general, though.  Not because 
> I'm
> 'afeared' of the radiation, but rather that such foods are inevitably
> produced by industrial/non-sustainable agricultural practices.

I would, just as I purchase canned goods, frozen food, and other 
preserved products.  While I don't think you're allowed to call it 
"organic" if it's been irradiated (you could have under the draft law, 
but there was a public outcry) there's nothing to prevent sustainably 
grown stuff from being irradiated, nor is much of the competing 
non-irradiated produce sustainably grown.   To go even further off 
topic, I think the greatest promise for irradiation lies in meat 
products - again, I wish they were labeled.  Yes, it's sometimes better 
to blanch veggies to inactivate enzymes that break them down, but 
fruits and veggies are often better when the cells are still alive, and 
I'm dubious that that's true if it's been irradiated.  The point, after 
all, is to kill bacteria and fungi, which are fairly tough.

Ginda