It’s a remarkable circumstance of our knee-jerk reliance on technology that this kind of thing seems like a solution.
The government will allow food producers to zap fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce with enough radiation to kill micro-organisms like E. coli and salmonella that for decades have caused widespread illness among consumers.
Obviously, the problem isn’t an advancing army of E. coli, but rather a food industry that is beyond broken.
“It’s a total cop-out,” said Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food and Water Watch. “They don’t have the resources, the authority or the political will to really protect consumers from unsafe food.”
But even given the self-inflicted “problem”, is irradiation a viable short term fix?
Critics say that not only does radiation make food less nutritious and potentially toxic but that the process also does not eliminate the risks of food-borne illnesses….
“The agency is choosing to have a high-tech expensive solution to a problem that needs a more thorough approach and one that really starts on the farm,” Ms. Smith DeWaal of the science center said. [Emphasis mine]
Farms, how quaint - do we still have those?
