The Potential of Food Irradiation: Benefits and Limitations

Preservation of food has been a major anxiety of man over the centuries. Contamination with microorganisms and pests causes considerable losses of foods during storage, transportation and marketing (15% for cereals, 20% for fish and dairy products and up to 40% for fruits and vegetables). Particularly, pathogenic bacteria are an important cause of human suffering and one of the most significant public health problems all over the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated, the infectious and parasitic diseases represented the most frequent cause of death worldwide (35%), the majority of which happened in developing countries in 1992 (Loaharanu, 1994). Numerous processing techniques have been developed to control food spoilage and raise safety. The traditional methods have been supplemented with pasteurization (by heat), canning, freezing, refrigeration and chemical preservatives (Agrios, 2005). Another technology that can be added to this list is irradiation. Food irradiation is the process of exposing amount of energy in the form of speed particles or rays for improving food safety, eliminating and reducing organisms that destroy the food products. This is a very mild treatment, because a radiation dose of 1 kGy represents the absorption of just enough energy to increase the temperature of the product by 0.36°C. It means that, heating, drying and cooking cause higher nutritional losses. Moreover, heterocyclic ring compounds and carcinogenic aromatic produced during thermal processing of food at high temperatures were not identified in irradiated foods (Tomlins, 2008). More than one century of research has gone into the understanding of the effective use of irradiation as a safety method. It has been repeatedly considered and judged suitable on available evidence. The international bodies including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), WHO and Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) investigate projects on food irradiation to verify the safety and quality of different irradiated products. It has shown that irradiation used on alone or in combination with other methods could improve the microbiological safety and extend shelf-