Des Moines Register
By Philip Brasher, Washington Bureau
Washington, D.C. — Irradiated food was put to the congressional taste test and passed.
Two U.S. House members holding a hearing on food safety Wednesday took bites of fresh spinach that had been zapped at the Sadex Corp. irradiation plant in Sioux City.
“No difference,” said Bart Stupak, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight subcommittee.
“No difference,” agreed Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. “I think Popeye would approve.”
The leaves they munched on were brought to the committee by Iowa State University professor Dennis Olson, who argues that the widespread use of irradiation could make food safer.
Consumers will have to take the congressmen’s word for it that the spinach was OK to eat. The Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve the commercial use of irradiation on fruits, vegetables and many other foods.
Irradiating food kills harmful E. coli, salmonella and other harmful bacteria. Sadex uses an electron-beam device to treat food.
Proper cooking also can kill the bacteria. However, spinach and other types of produce are commonly eaten raw and have been linked to widespread food-poisoning outbreaks in recent years.
“When we have widespread use of irradiation of our food supply, it will also be listed as a pillar of public health,” said Olson, an expert on irradiation. He compared the technology to pasteurizing milk with heat.
Irradiation of ground beef, which has been approved for commercial use for eight years, has not caught on with consumers, however.
One East Coast supermarket chain, Wegman’s, sells beef irradiated by Sadex, but the product makes up only about 1 percent of the company’s ground beef sales. The beef costs Wegman’s about 70 cents a pound more than conventional beef, and the company passes a portion of that, about 40 cents, on to shoppers.
Dennis Wegman, the company’s chief executive, said that it is difficult for farms to prevent contamination of fresh fruits and vegetables and that the FDA should allow produce to be irradiated.
An executive with Dole Foods told the House panel earlier that irradiating fresh produce could ruin the quality.
Olson brought the lawmakers samples of a variety of produce that had been irradiated, including lettuce, tomatoes and asparagus, along with conventional versions of the same foods. The products were laid out on a witness table in front the committee and in a cooler on the floor. There was no obvious difference in appearance between the irradiated and conventional products.
The FDA has been considering since 1999 whether to approve the wider use of irradiation. It released a statement Wednesday by Laura Tarantino, the agency’s director of food additive safety, saying that the produce irradiation issue was a “high priority.”
One issue that has come up in the FDA review, said Olson, is whether irradiating food can increase the formation of a toxic chemical compound known as furan. He said, however, that many foods now on the market already contain various levels of furan.
