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From: rmrin@inuxa.UUCP (D Rickert)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.physics,net.cooks
Subject: Re: sterilizing food with radiation
Message-ID: <138@inuxa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 13:14:29 EST
Article-I.D.: inuxa.138
Posted: Fri Nov 22 13:14:29 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Nov-85 05:12:01 EST
References: <6202@amdcad.UUCP> <225@redwood.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products, Indianapolis
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Xref: watmath net.med:2817 net.physics:3621 net.cooks:5461

> Phil Ngai <phil@amdcad.uucp> writes:
> +---------------
> | I understand that preliminary tests are being done on the use of
> | radiation to sterilize food. The food is exposed to a source of
> | radiation...  Afterwards, the food is not radioactive and is supposed to
> | be edible. My question is, are the results of breaking large molecules
> | at random places likely to be completely innocuous?...
> +---------------
> 
> Actually, as I understand it, the technique is *old*, as such things go.
> 
> It was first tried by the U.S. miltitary some 20 years ago(?), with great
> success. The idea was to have a cheap way to store large quantities of
> "normal" (not frozen or dehydrated) foods, for the usual military and
> civil-defense reasons. They use only ionizing radiation, such as gamma
> or electron-beam, not neutrons or alphas, thus no secondary radiation
> is even possible. From newspaper reports at the time (I mean, really
> *years* ago), the processed food looked, smelled, and tasted just like
> what went in,...


The taste was the problem, some of it didn't taste the same after treatment.
-- 


You are Beautiful,			Dick Rickert
my manufactured love;-			AT&T CPL
but it is only Svengali,		Indy, IN
talking to himself again.		Reward is its own virtue!