Food irradiation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The international "Radura symbol" indicates that food has been treated by irradiation.

The food irradiation is a method for preservation (in the broadest sense) of food products with the aid of ionizing radiation .

Electron radiation and bremsstrahlung (X-rays) from particle accelerators as well as gamma rays from the decay of 60 Co or 137 Cs are used .

Food irradiation pursues a number of goals, which can be achieved by varying the dose of irradiation:

The history of food irradiation is closely linked to research into radioactivity and ionizing radiation; first proposals were made before 1900, more intensive research in connection with the preservation of food in the Second World War. Large-scale application was only possible with the development of suitable accelerators in the 1950s and the availability of larger quantities of radioactive radiation sources. Even if the basic approval by international professional bodies has been available for a long time, the use in the food sector is currently mainly limited to spices due to political requirements within the European Union. In contrast, sterilization by radiation in the technical and medical fields is more advanced and established.

Method and radiation used

The effect of the irradiation is based on the destruction of the genome and thus the ability of the irradiated organisms to reproduce and survive. The purpose important DNA is because of the size of their molecule significantly more sensitive to radiation than smaller molecules. The other properties, the composition and in particular the so-called identity (e.g. raw) of the food are therefore not changed by the irradiation, unlike with other preservation methods.

Of the various types of ionizing radiation , gamma rays as well as electron beams and bremsstrahlung ( X-rays ) generated by electron accelerators are used.

In large- scale irradiation systems, gamma radiation of radioactive 60 Co is mostly used; Brake radiation has roughly the same penetration behavior. Whole pallets can be irradiated at once. Irradiation with electrons, on the other hand, is only suitable for individual packs of small thickness because of the lower penetration depth.

The energy of the radiation is limited by regulations in order to exclude an activation of the food: with electrons mostly to 10 MeV, with photons mostly to 5 MeV, in the USA 7.5 MeV. The energy of the frequently used photon radiation of 60 Co (1.17 and 1.33 MeV) and 137 Cs (0.66 MeV) is too low to trigger an activation.

Irradiation systems

As a rule, irradiation systems are not tailored exclusively to food. Independent service providers often offer irradiation for a wide variety of purposes.

In Hawaii there is a special system with X-rays that is used for quarantine purposes such as killing insects such as the fruit fly , so that fresh fruit can be transported to the continental United States without chemical or thermal treatment . A gamma system in Mulberry is primarily used to irradiate meat and poultry products in order to kill harmful microorganisms. In Sioux City , an electron accelerator is used almost exclusively to irradiate minced meat for hamburgers. In Berric there is an electron accelerator that is used to irradiate poultry meat from separators to eliminate dangerous microorganisms and reduce the general microbiological load.

It is estimated that there are around 200 large irradiation facilities worldwide with an average of 56 PBq (1.5  MCi ) 60 Co each  , corresponding to a total radiation output of around 4.5 MW, and around 1000 accelerator facilities from 25 kW to around 700 kW, accordingly a total radiation output of around 50 MW. The amount of irradiated food around the world is estimated at over 500,000 tons, half of which are spices. Approvals exist in over 60 countries. Irradiated products are quite common in our everyday lives. Compared to this volume, the amount of irradiated food is quite small.

Tabular history of food irradiation

  • 1895 Röntgen discovers bremsstrahlung
  • 1896 Antoine Henri Becquerel discovers natural radioactivity; Minck suggests the therapeutic use of ionizing radiation
  • 1904 Samuel Prescott investigates bactericidal effects in studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  • 1906 Appleby & Banks: British patent for the use of radioactive isotopes for irradiating powdered foods
  • 1918 Gillett: US patent for the use of X-rays for food preservation
  • 1921 Schwartz describes the fight against trichinae
  • 1930 Wüst: French Food irradiation patent
  • 1943 Intensive research at MIT on food preservation for canned food by the US Army
  • 1951 US Atomic Energy Commission coordinates research programs
  • 1955 Start of research at the former Federal Research Center for Food Freshness (BfL), later Federal Research Center for Nutrition (BfE), today Max Rubner Institute (MRI), Karlsruhe
  • 1958 Commercial spice irradiation in Stuttgart; world's first industrial application ( Van de Graaff accelerator )
  • 1958 Food Act in Germany prohibits ionizing radiation
  • 1966 Inauguration of the Institute for Radiation Technology of Food at the Federal Research Center for Food Freshness, today MRI, Karlsruhe; 1st International Congress on Food Irradiation in Karlsruhe
  • 1970 Foundation of the international project in the field of food irradiation (IFIP), based at the BfL, Karlsruhe
  • 1980 FAO / IAEA / WHO Joint Expert Committee on Food Irradiation endorses approval in general up to 10  kGy
  • 1981/1983 Dissolution of the IFIP after achieving its goals
  • 1983 Codex Alimentarius General Standard for Irradiated Foods: all foods, dose upper limit 10 kGy (average)
  • 1984 Foundation of the successor organization to JECFI >> International Consultative Group on Food Irradiation (ICGFI); Admission in the GDR, ordinance on implementation
  • In 1989, with the accession of the five new states to the Federal Republic, the approval of food irradiation ends in the GDR
  • 1997 FAO / IAEA / WHO Joint Study Group on High-Dose Irradiation endorses the abolition of the upper dose limit
  • 1999 EC directive on food irradiation
  • 2000 Implementation of the directive in Germany
  • 2003 Codex Alimentarius General Standard for Irradiated Foods: Abolition of the upper dose limit
  • 2004 ICGFI ended

Health assessment

No other method of treating and processing food has ever been investigated so thoroughly; in more than 50 years of research, no adverse effects have been found in numerous tests on test systems, on animals and on human volunteers. International bodies, such as a joint committee of FAO, IAEA and WHO (JECFI) in 1980, confirmed that food of all kinds can be irradiated without hesitation up to an 'average overall dose' of 10  kGy .

Within the European Community, in 1986 the SCF (Scientific Committee on Food, German: Scientific Food Committee; replaced since 2004 by the EFSA [European Food Safety Authority]) issued a position for each of the eight food groups recommended for approval at the time - except for spices dose values ​​lower than 10 kGy are set. In the following years, in 1992 and 1998, it was recommended that further foods be allowed; a complete dose release, as suggested by the JSGHDI in 1997, was rejected in 2003. The SCF continued to reserve the right to carry out individual checks for foods that were not yet approved, in contradiction to the findings of the JECFI from 1980 and the JSGHDI from 1997. This position was expressly confirmed in 2011 by two EFSA working groups.

In Germany, the responsible foreign matter commission of the German Research Foundation (DFG) backed the JECFI's 1980 judgment in full and expressly recommended the approval of the irradiation of spices. Furthermore, in 1983 the Federal Health Council and in 1994 the Consumer Committee basically agreed to this ruling. Both have also advocated irradiation of spices, but have reservations about other products.

Reservations and Concerns

Food irradiation is, among other things, the subject of reservations that seek to link food irradiation with fears, concerns and resistance to nuclear power.

Often expressed objections and concerns accuse food irradiation, among other things, of them

  • serve to mask a spoilage or to simulate a lack of freshness,
  • lead to the neglect of strict "good manufacturing practice" and the extension of transport routes,
  • mainly kills the "good" and beneficial microorganisms or contributes to the increased growth of the "bad" and harmful bacteria,
  • destroy invigorating properties, denature food and ruin taste and aroma,
  • do not destroy existing bacterial toxins,
  • cause harmful chemical changes for the consumer,
  • is associated with risks because of the use of radioactive 60 Co.

In addition, reference is made to the lack of long-term studies on the consumption of irradiated foods. The scientists are 'not yet in agreement', 'critical colleagues' see the harmlessness as not proven. The formation of free radicals due to the radiation is possible.

Counter arguments from supporters

Basically, food irradiation is internationally approved and has advantages over established, especially conservation methods such as heat treatment, chlorination or treatment with bromomethane . Once it has deteriorated, it is not reversed by irradiation. The effects of radiation on food are basically comparable to those of other physical and energetic effects, but radiation effects kill bacteria more selectively than other methods. They do not lead to a significant impairment of nutritional value, vitamin content or taste.

Wherever irradiated food is clearly labeled on the market, consumers will also accept it.

In a historical comparison, comparable arguments were put forward against pasteurization in the dairy industry; contrary to fears, the hygiene standards have improved significantly since then.

The question about the negative - here about the absence of any risk that could arise from irradiated food - cannot be answered by natural science ( falsifiability ). The question must therefore be posed differently: How likely is it to damage one's health through the consumption of irradiated food? This probability is estimated to be very low. Evidence was provided, among other things, by long-term animal experiments over several generations; in addition, irradiated food does not cause cancer or genetic damage.

Media coverage related to sick cats

Time and again, some incidents associated with food irradiation have met with national interest. They did not have any impact on the global recognition and approval of food irradiation.

Symptoms of paralysis in cats in Australia

In Australia, 30 cats had to be euthanized and showed signs of paralysis after receiving imported organic food that had been irradiated. The import company traced the cases of illness back to official requirements, which required irradiation of imported feed (and many other products or objects) with 50 kGy or continuous heating, issued a product recall and set up a fund to provide financial support for affected cat owners. The cause of the paralysis has not yet been clarified.

A suspected reduction in the vitamin content, such as vitamin A , as a result of the irradiation was not confirmed; the cats also had access to other food.

Animal studies on pregnant cats in the USA

A study at the University of Wisconsin found in tests on pregnant cats that nerve damage that is otherwise considered chronic and suspected to have been caused by the administration of irradiated animal feed can be reversed under certain circumstances. A clear causal relationship with the feed or its irradiation was neither the subject nor the result of the study; Of great interest, however, is a possible connection between diet and nervous diseases such as multiple sclerosis .

"Ban" on irradiation of cat food in Australia

Newspaper reports said that irradiation of cat food had been banned in Australia because of the symptoms of paralysis. Previously, there was an obligation in Australia to irradiate imported products, including dry or semi-dry animal feed, with at least 50 kGy or to heat the core at 100 ° C for at least 30 minutes. The responsible Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) announced on June 6th, 2009 that the irradiation of cat food is "no longer permitted". H. is no longer one of the prescribed methods, and that irradiated dog food must be labeled: “Must not be fed to cats”. The AQIS refers to scientific literature and points out to importers that it is their responsibility to pay attention to whether new scientific findings could have any meaning with regard to their products.

Legal situation

In 1999 the EC issued guidelines on food irradiation. The current status of provisional authorizations in the Member States varies considerably. These were implemented in German law with the new version of the Food Irradiation Ordinance (valid since December 21, 2000). The amended regulation allows the treatment of dried herbs and spices with electrons, gamma rays and X-rays . The exact specification of these types of radiation can be found in Appendix 1 of this ordinance. Basically, there must be both a technological necessity and an advantage for the consumer in food irradiation; this is the case for both aspects. This means that the general ban on irradiation that was previously in force in Germany is no longer in force. Seven EU countries (Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom) have maintained further approvals. So are z. B. in France, frozen frog legs are mostly irradiated to protect consumers from infections. Due to a general German decree to implement the rules of the single market of the EC, frozen, irradiated frog legs from Belgium, the Netherlands and France may be marketed in Germany.

The Codex Alimentarius has unreservedly recognized ionizing radiation as a treatment method for food and has defined both a standard and a 'Code of Practice' for this. According to the WTO agreement, no member country of the WTO may therefore refuse to import irradiated food. Irradiated food must be labeled without exception, even if it contains only the smallest amount of ingredients that otherwise would not have to be declared. However, the RADURA symbol is not permitted in the EC. In order to enforce this regulation and also the bans on irradiation, analytical detection methods have been developed that are also regularly used by food monitoring. On the basis of the EC Directive of 1999, all member states are obliged to carry out such studies on the market and to report on them annually to the European Commission; these reports are then published in the Official Journal of the EC.

Originally there was no regulation of food irradiation in the Federal Republic of Germany; d. that is, it was generally allowed. The world's first commercial food irradiation took place at a spice company in Stuttgart. At the same time, however, a ban on irradiation was inserted into the then food law, but with the declared view that this ban would be reviewed later: “The principle of prohibition with reservation of permission was introduced as a precaution by the law amending and supplementing the food law of December 21, 1958 , after it was not clarified at that time to what extent foods treated with ionizing radiation can assume adverse properties. ”This review has not yet taken place; however, the above. The listed EC directive now takes precedence. The recommendations of the SCF to allow a total of 8 food groups and a few other individual foods have not yet been implemented.

See also

Basic literature

  • Marcus Karel, Daryl B. Lund: Physical Principles of Food Preservation . 2nd revised edition. CRC Press 2003, ISBN 0-8247-4063-7
  • Dieter Ehlermann, Henry Delincée: The radiation conservation of food . 8th edition. Federal Research Institute for Nutrition (BFE), 1998, radiation conservation .
  • JF Diehl: Safety of Irradiated Foods , Marcel Dekker, New York, 1995 (2nd ed.)
  • PS Elias, AJ Cohen (Eds.): Radiation chemistry of major food components . Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1977
  • PS Elias, AJ Cohen (Ed.): Recent advances in food irradiation . Elsevier, Amsterdam 1983
  • ES Josephson, MS Peterson (Ed.): Preservation of food by ionizing radiation . CRC Press, Boca Raton, Volume 1 (1983), Volume 2 (1983)
  • J. Kuprianoff, K. Lang: Radiation conservation and contamination of food . Contributions to nutritional science, Volume 3. Steinkopff, Darmstadt, 1960
  • German Conferences "Food Irradiation"
    1. All-German conference. Status, projects, detection methods, Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology of the Federal Health Office, Berlin, SozEp-Hefte 7 (1991)
    2. All-German conference, Federal Research Institute for Nutrition, Karlsruhe, BFE-R-93-03 (1993)
    3. German conference, New development in food, feed and waste irradiation, Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology of the Federal Health Office, Berlin, SozEp-Hefte 16 (1993)
    4. German conference, assessment, technology, evidence, Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology of the Federal Health Office, Berlin, SozEp-Hefte 5 (1994)
    5. German conference. Reports from the Federal Research Institute for Nutrition. BFE – R –– 99–01. Federal Research Institute for Nutrition, Karlsruhe (1999)

Web links

Individual evidence

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  2. ↑ Food Irradiation - Questions and Answers . In: aid booklet 1424/2000, evaluation and information service for food, agriculture and forestry, Bonn
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  6. ↑ Catherine M. Deeley, Meixu Gao, Richard Hunter, Dieter Ehlermann AE: The development of food irradiation in the Asia Pacific, the Americas and Europe . Food tutorial. Kuala Lumpur 2006 ( online [accessed September 25, 2010] presented to the International Meeting on Radiation Processing (IMRP 2006)).
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  8. ^ J. Farkas et al .: History and future of food irradiation . In: Trends Food Sci. Technol. , 22, 2011, pp. 121-126
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  10. ↑ F. Minck: On the question of the effect of X-rays on bacteria and their possible therapeutic use . In: Münchener Medicinische Wochenschrift , 43 (5), 1896, pp. 101-102.
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  24. ↑ High-Dose Irradiation: Wholesomeness of food irradiated with doses above 10 kGy . World Health Organization, Geneva 1999, WHO Technical Report Series 890.
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  26. ↑ an., Statement summarizing the Conclusions and Recommendations from the Opinions on the Safety of Irradiation of Food adopted by the BIOHAZ and CEF Panels, EFSA Journal 2011; 9 (4): 2107 ff. Efsa.europa.eu .
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  36. ↑ JF Diehl, C. Hasselmann, D. Kilcast: Are irradiated foods without nutritional value? In: Int. Z. Lebensmitteltechnik, Marketing, Verpackung und Analytik , 42, 1991, No. 6, pp. 314-323.
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  39. ^ RL cloud: What Einstein told his cook - science in the kitchen . Piper, Munich 2003, see p. 361 “Radiant enlightenment, what radiation is”.
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  41. ↑ Orijen Cat Food - Australia: Update 5 - Jan. 19. (PDF; 382 kB) (No longer available online.) Champion Petfoods Ltd, November 26, 2008, archived from the original on October 26, 2013 ; Retrieved April 30, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.championpetfoods.com
  42. ^ ID Duncan, A. Brower, Y. Kondo, JF Curlee, RD Schultz: Extensive remyelination of the CNS leads to functional recovery . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS . tape 106 , no. 16 , April 21, 2009, p. 6832-6836 , doi : 10.1073 / pnas.0812500106 .
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  44. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Notice to Industry 7/2009, Safety of Irradiated Pet (Cat) Foods - Update to Notice 33 / 2008-09, visited on April 29, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.daff.gov.au
  45. ↑ Changes to Import Conditions for Pet Foods - Update to Notices 33 / 2008-09 and 7/2009. (DOC) Notice to Industry 33/2009. (No longer available online.) Australian Government; Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service; Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, July 3, 2009, archived from the original on March 18, 2013 ; accessed on April 29, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.daff.gov.au
  46. ↑ Directive 1999/2 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council . of February 22, 1999 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to foods and food ingredients treated with ionizing radiation. In: Official Journal of the European Communities . March 13, 1999 ( online [accessed September 21, 2012]).
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  49. ↑ Text of the food irradiation ordinance
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