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FOOD IRRADIATION METHOD Dr. Hasan ALKAN Although the need for food products increases day by day in all over the world, food production does not increase at the same level. In addition to these there are great losses at 20-40% levels on the food materials due to the improper storage. People have always been seeking for finding ways to eliminate the food lasses and avoiding from food-borne disases. As a result of these efforts several food protection methods have been developed. On the other hand these methods were also insufficient to avoid the large foodstuff losses and avoiding the food resulted diseases. Chemical methods harm the public health. Today most commonly used fumigants such as methyl bromide are subject to restrictions by United Nations Environmental Protection Association since 2001 and their use shall be completely stopped in 2005 in the developed countries and in 2015 in developing countries. Food irradiation technology has been accepted in both developed and developing countries as an alternative for traditional methods employed for food-borne. Furthermore it shall be used instead of fumigants in the near future for quarantine processes. Applications in this field were started in the USA. Food irradiation is a food process similar to the heat pasteurization, conservation and freezing. On the other hand in this method ionization energy is used instead of heat. Foodstuffs are processed in their packages-in the bags, boxes or on the pallets. For this purpose penetrating gamma rays, accelerated electrons or x-rays are used. Today gamma rays emitted by Co-60 isotope are mostly used for food irradiation. During the irradiation processing while the rays pass through the foodstuff, they destroy the DNA of the pests, microorganism, parasites, insects and their eggs and larva and in this way they are not harmful anymore and therefore the food quality is protected and shelf life is increased. Iradiation as in the other food preservation methods, do not make a deformed foodstuff healthy. Meanwhile it can not be applied for all food types. At the moment the most common application areas are spices, cereal grains, dry vegetables and fruits, herbal teas, fish and shelled sea products, frog legs, white and red meat and products obtained from these. On the other hand recently in some countries quarantine radiation and in order to increase the shelf life is applied for the fresh fruit and vegetables, picked flowers. In table I the food groups permitted to be radiated by the Food Radiation Regulation and several technologic purposes are given. During food radiation, foodstuff is never in contact with the radiation source and processed foodstuff never becomes radioactive. As one does not harmed due to the x-ray film taken at a hospital or ionization energy used at the control at the airport gate entries, when applied properly radiation technology has no harmful affect on the foodstuff National and international institutions for 30-40 years have performed several researches on the reliability of irradiated foodstuff. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Agency (WHO) and International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) Experts Committee evaluated the reliability and benefits of irradiated foodstuff at the meetings held on 1964, 1970 and 1980 and discussions have been made over 500 researches on this subject. Upon these evaluations it was concluded that the foodstuff irradiated no more than 10 kGy is suitable for human consumption and reliable on nutrition value, toxicology and microbiology aspects. The same evaluation was made in University of Cambridge in England and CAST in the USA and the same results were obtained. According to the researches made in the USA it was found that the foodstuff irradiated more than 10 kGy has no deformation other than a little taste lose. As a result of this research USA authorities approved that some herbal teas and spices can be irradiated up to 30 kGy and some hospital foods and astronaut food up to 50 kGy. As a result of all these researches and evaluation of the results, international food codex commission published a general standard for the radiated foodstuff in 1983 and they are revised in 1993 and 2001. Turkey is included the countries approving the foodstuff irradiation on 6 November 1999 by issuing "Food Iradiating Regulation". Food Iradiation technology is accepted as an alternative for the traditional methods employed to preserve the foodstuff and solve the problems related to the quality increase in many developed and developing countries of the world. Today in 40 countries more than 50 kinds of foodstuff are being irradiated. In Turkey there are two gamma radiation plants: one for trade and the other for research purposes. SOURCES: |
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