A Dangerous Deal: How Irradiated Foods Are Putting Colorado Consumers at Risk

11/19/2003

Executive Summary

Irradiated foods, which are exposed to radiation to kill bacteria, extend shelf-life and eliminate invasive pests, present an array of potential health risks to consumers.

These foods have already entered Colorado’s food supply through several supermarkets and may soon be served to children in public school cafeterias.

What is Irradiated Food?

Irradiating food is accomplished by exposing it to ionizing radiation via one of three technologies: gamma rays, X-rays or electron beams. There are two main concerns associated with “treating” food with radiation: nutritional value is decreased, and changes occur in the chemical composition of food. When food is blasted with radiation, new chemical compounds can be formed, some of which have never been found to occur naturally in any food on Earth.

In experiments dating to the 1950s, a wide range of health problems have been observed in test animals fed irradiated foods, including mutations and other genetic damage, fetal death and other reproductive problems, cancer, organ and immune system damage, blood disorders, stunted growth and nutritional deficiencies. A small number of studies have revealed certain health problems in adults and children.

Irradiation depletes the nutritional value of food by destroying or disrupting vitamins, enzymes, proteins and other nutrients. Virtually all vitamins exposed to this process suffer measurable losses. Vitamin B6 in irradiated beef, for example, has been shown to be decreased by 91 percent after 15 months.

FDA Failures

To this day the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not established a safety level for irradiated foods. The FDA’s guidelines allow food to be exposed to radiation equivalent to as high as one billion chest x-rays.

A Dangerous Deal

Irradiated food has already entered Colorado’s food supply. First, consumers can purchase irradiated foods at King Soopers, City Market, Avanza and Sun Mart stores. Yet, the average consumer has not been sufficiently informed about the risks these foods present, and are also not aware of the failures of the FDA to uphold its own standards of food safety during the authorization process.

Second, Colorado school districts are currently deciding whether or not to include irradiated meat in school lunches.

On May 29, 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture lifted the prohibition on irradiated meat in the National School Lunch Program. Starting in 2004, school districts throughout the country will have the option of serving this product in school lunches at an additional cost of 13 to 20 cents more per pound. The almost complete lack of research on how exposure to irradiated foods could affect a child’s development makes this decision unacceptable.

Finally, local ranchers could feel the side-effects from widespread sale of irradiated foods. Throughout the state, they could be forced to compete with corporations able to take advantage of lower production and labor costs in foreign countries. Irradiated foods can be stored without spoiling for longer periods of time, allowing foods produced elsewhere to be shipped here and sold at local markets.

Ranching contributes half of the $4.5 billion dollars generated by agriculture in Colorado, and the potential impacts of their loss are enormous.

Recommendations

Colorado’s consumers are faced with a changing set of values and rules concerning how our food is raised, processed, and sold. Our ranching communities are competing in an emerging international market while still searching for local buyers. Consumers’ trust in familiar grocery stores is being challenged by the presence of irradiated foods on their shelves.

Our children may end up eating a product that has not been tested for potential adverse health effects in any meaningful way by the agencies charged with that responsibility.

The Colorado Public Interest Research Group and Public Citizen recommend several solutions to these problems:

• The state of Colorado should pass a ban on serving irradiated foods in schools or, at the very least, make it mandatory for schools serving irradiated food to provide written notification to parents, have signage in the cafeteria, and always provide a non-irradiated meal option.

• Individual Colorado school districts should pass resolutions banning irradiated foods in their respective school lunch programs.

• Supermarkets should remove irradiated foods from their shelves, or ensure clear labeling of irradiated ingredients.

• Based on new research, the FDA should suspend pending approvals of ready-to- eat foods and seafood.

• The FDA should exercise the precautionary principle by issuing a moratorium on irradiated food. The USDA should reverse its approval of irradiated beef in the National School Lunch Program until conclusive studies have been done to determine “safe” levels of chemicals in irradiated beef – particularly in terms of exposure to children.