Quote:
Originally Posted by VICAR OF DIBLEY
I can understand where they are coming from, but with so many foods being sprayed with chemicals, including Monsanto's Round Up which is a watered down version of Agent Orange - I do not know if I followed the plan I would be healthier.
The food the Chinese people were eating were not sprayed with many of the chemicals used today nor would I think they were irradiated.
Here is a list of foods irradiated in the United States -
Food Irradiation Watch – How and why is food irradiated?
I have no solution, but the more I read about GMO's the scarier it is to me. |
I also was concerned originally, but we've been buying Omaha Steaks black angus steak burgers and regular hamburgers, all of which are irradiated.........for many years now. Ditto for their ground beef packages (to use for meat loaf and such).
The ground beef in our supermarkets has had many recalls.......and they do not even notify the customers......it's up to us to see if we have it in our freezers or not. Once, I called to ask about some Price Chopper ground beef recalls which I had heard on our morning news in Vermont. The local Price Chopper head butcher was NOT EVEN AWARE OF THE RECALL. He did tell me to bring it back for a refund. I threw it out in the garbage. There was a raging blizzard outside.......not good weather to bring back a few packages all the way across town. But, they didn't even know........that their own meat was tainted.
As far as Chinese imports of food, just the other evening on the news they said that the Chinese were substituting RAT MEAT for lamb and chicken?
I would not put too much confidence into Chinese food ........remember the baby formula scandal as well as the pet food mess.
After all the supermarket "scares" with tainted beef, my husband feels that irradiated beef is generally safer.......
Please read below.........
Irradiation of ground beef was given the green light by the federal government February, 2001 and the first products appeared last May in stores in the Midwest. How many carry the patties today is unclear. Wil Williams, a spokesman for Titan, which owns the SureBeam Corporation, the company that irradiates most of the ground beef sold in this country, put the number at approximately 2,000 in 18 states. But several other industry experts said the figures were 1,500 stores in 14 states. With the exception of Florida, which has an irradiation plant, most irradiated beef is found in the Midwest, near the SureBeam plant in Sioux City, Iowa.
Total sales are even harder to determine. Jeffrey Barach, a vice president of the National Food Processors Association and the co-chairman of the irradiation conference, said of consumer acceptance of the beef: "Some say it's great; some say it's not going well. We still have a little perception problem, and that has to do with the labeling issue. When you pick up a product and see a statement that it is treated by irradiation and you see a radura, to some people that means a little radioactivity."
The food industry has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to permit the substitution of the phrase "cold pasteurization."
Omaha Steaks' Web site does have information about irradiation, but it is called electronic pasteurization, and you would find it only if you knew what to look for. "Pasteurization is a nice, very positive word," Ms. Hagen said.
But Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation of America's Food Policy Institute, objected to what she said was the industry's attempt to hide irradiation behind other words. Consumer research, she said, shows that shoppers want the term irradiation to appear on treated products.
Irradiation kills bacteria, parasites and insects but does not make food radioactive. It does not destroy viruses like those that cause hepatitis or the prions that may cause mad cow disease. And there is some loss of vitamins, though it is minimal.
Once irradiated meat is unwrapped, the potential for contamination is the same as it is for nonirradiated meat, so safe handling practices must be followed. And while irradiating hamburgers makes them safer, they should not be eaten rare.
Critics worry that if irradiation becomes a major factor the meat industry will not bother to clean up. "We'd like to see filth taken out of the food supply rather than just treated to make it safe to eat," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group.
At two small chains that sell the meat, Byerly's and Lund's in Minneapolis-St. Paul, frozen irradiated patties account for only one percent of total ground beef sales, even though they cost less than the fresh patties at these stores.
Irradiation supporters are certain that an education campaign is all that is needed to persuade people to buy the meat and to quiet the critics. Mr. Williams of Titan said: "There needs to be an education program to get past the myths and distortions. I think American consumers will demand it just as they demand pasteurized milk, and it took 30 years for pasteurized milk to be accepted."
But others believe that the market for irradiated ground beef will always be limited to those with compromised immune systems whether because of age or illness.