Food Irradiation Update is published by the
Quotable Quotes:
"It's very good news for consumers (concerning Health
Irradiation, with clear labeling, is an idea whose time has come. Editorial Opinion,
Health Canada to Recommend Irradiation of More
Food, says Le Devoir
Irradiated
Ground Beef on
Irradiating Food a Good Idea
406,000
Lbs. Of Ground Beef and
Steak Recalled
Health Canada to recommend
irradiation of more food, says Le Devoir; (August 24, 2004) CP Wire via FSNET:
MONTREAL -- Montreal's Le Devoir newspaper was cited as reporting Tuesday that
Health Canada officials are preparing to recommend that federal Health Minister
Ujjal Dosanjh allow
irradiated ground beef, chicken and shrimp to be sold in the country, following
more than 22 months of public consultations and departmental consideration.
Claudette Dalpe, head
of the project at Health
Monique Lacroix of the Institut Armand-Frappier, which has pushed the irradiation of food for more
than 15 years, was quoted as saying, "It's very good news for consumers.
If we can reduce the amount of food poisoning that costs the health system
millions of dollars each year, why not do it?"
Irradiating food a good idea; (August 25, 2004)
Editorial Opinion; The Gazette (Montreal) via FSNET:
Health Canada is on the verge, Le Devoir reports, of adding shrimp, chicken,
ground beef and mangoes to the list of foodstuffs authorized for irradiation.
This is, according to this editorial, a victory for science over superstitious
dread.
Despite years of the-sky-is-falling rhetoric, Health
The editorial says that for years, Canadians have been eating irradiated wheat
flour, onions, potatoes, herbs, spices and dried vegetable seasonings, with no
evidence of damage. Over those years, critics of the process have shifted from
health scare to other grounds for objection: this is just to increase corporate
profits; longer shelf life will mean food is less fresh; the practice will
allow lower health standards in food processing before the irradiation stage.
There's little merit in these claims. The process could put an end
to those seasonal headlines about e. coli outbreaks
from undercooked hamburgers.
In any case the market can now decide. While Health
Irradiated
beef on school menus;
This is the first year that the U.S.
Department of Agriculture has offered irradiated beef in national school lunch
and other federal food programs. It has been on the shelves of grocery stores
since 2000.
Irradiation involves directing electron
beams or gamma rays produced by the radioactive material cobalt 60 to kill
harmful bacteria. Studies show that most of the radiation passes through
without being absorbed. The USDA and Food and Drug Administration have deemed
irradiated food as safe.
Sen. Roger Wehrbein
of Plattsmouth, a farmer and cattle feeder, said that since the government
endorsed irradiated food, it is probably fine for children to eat. He added
that he doesn't think people should let "emotional issues" interfere
with making decisions that should be based on science.
Consumer groups, though, have doubts.
They want the government to study the long-term health effects of irradiated
food before serving it to children.
"The jury's still out on this irradiation thing," said Laura Kresbach, a mother and a regional representative for the
Sierra Club in
The state orders about 1 million pounds
of ground beef each year for schools and day-care centers. This year, just 2
percent of that - about 20,000 pounds - is irradiated. Earlier this year, some schools said they
wouldn't buy irradiated beef because it costs 15 cents more per pound than
regular ground beef.
A handful of schools - most of them small
- did buy it, including
Some lunch directors who order food don't
tell parents and superintendents. That's why Lexington Superintendent Richard Eisenhauer was unaware that his lunch director had ordered
225 cases - about 4,500 pounds - of irradiated beef. "That's news to me," Eisenhauer said.
Eisenhauer
said Peggy Tvrdy directs
The School Nutrition Association
represents 55,000 school lunch directors nationwide and specially trains and
certifies them. The group has stopped
short of endorsing irradiated beef, but supported the government's move to
offer it to schools in the national lunch program.
State Sen. Donald Preister
of
State officials and the USDA also urge
schools and day-care centers to inform parents if they are serving irradiated
beef. "That is the responsibility
of the schools. That information has been made clear to them" in both
federal and state materials about irradiated beef, said Mike Harris, the
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services official who helps schools and
day-care facilities order food. Harris
noted that schools purchase 20 percent of their food through the federal
nutrition programs and buy the remaining 80 percent from private vendors.
Safety was foremost in Diane Thober's mind as she ordered irradiated beef for the 48
children at her day-care center, Kids Korner, in
Beatrice. She said she wanted to protect the children from food poisoning and
based her decision on information she had read in a news article about
irradiated meat. Children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems
are among the most vulnerable to getting sick from harmful bacteria such as E.
coli, which causes flu-like symptoms. It can be fatal in some cases. Properly
cooking meat will kill most bacteria.
"I did it just because of the fear
that if we would get some meat that was bad," Thober
said. "I thought we'd just go ahead and try that, just to be on the safe
side."
Nationwide, an estimated 5,000 people die
from food poisoning every year and 76 million get sick, according to Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now serving irradiated
beef
ABC Child Care, Cairo ; Belinda's Angels in
Training, Omaha; Building Blocks, Ravenna; Gingerbread Playschool., Hastings;
Happy Hearts, Plattsmouth; Kids Korner Daycare,
Beatrice; Kid's World Learning Center, Grand Island; Mosaic, Grand Island
Northwest Nebraska Community Action; Headstart,
Chadron; Offutt Air Force Base Child Care Center, Offutt Air Force Base; Pac 2
Center, Hastings; Pumpkin Patch Child Care, Kearney; Reaching for the Stars Day
Care, Scottsbluff; St. Andrew's Child Enrichment Center, Omaha; Wakefield
Family Resource Center, Wakefield
SCHOOLS
Ashland-Greenwood Public Schools; Bennington Public School; Bruning;
Crete; District 60-Wallace, Hastings; East West Catholic, Fordyce; Eustis-Farnam Public School, Eustis; Eustis-Farnam
Public School, Farnam; Firth Norris School District
Haig School District 20, Mitchell; Hampton Public
School; Harvard Public School; Hastings Adams Central; Hastings Catholic
Schools; Holy Name School, Omaha; Homer; Inman Public School; Kenesaw Public School; Leigh Elementary School; Lexington
Public Schools; Lincoln Lutheran Junior-Senior High School; Loomis Public
Schools; Louisville Public Schools; Lourdes School/St. Mary Church, Nebraska
City; Madison Public Schools; Mount Calvary Lutheran School, Omaha; Norfolk
Catholic Schools; Palmyra Public Schools, Palmyra; Palmyra Public Schools, Bennet; Plattsmouth Community Schools; Ravenna Public
School; Sacred Heart School, Lincoln; Santee Public School, Niobrara; Spalding
Academy; St. James School, Crete
St. John, Lincoln; St. Leonard School, Madison; St. Patrick School, Lincoln; St.
Paul Lutheran School, Utica; St. Philip Neri School,
Omaha; Stuart Public School, Stuart; Sumner-Eddyville-Miller School, Sumner; Tekamah-Herman
Schools, Tekamah
Unadilla Public School; Utica Centennial; Wahoo Public Schools; Waterloo Public
School; Winnebago Public School; Wood River; Youth Emergency Services, Bellevue.
406,000 Lbs. Of Ground Beef And Steak Recalled; (August 26, 2004) via
BEEF Magazine’s Cow Calf Weekly: Quantum Foods, Bolingbrook, IL, voluntarily
recalled about 406,000 lbs. of frozen beef products for possible E. coli
O157:H7 contamination, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced this
week. The products were produced June 23-24 and distributed nationwide to
restaurants, military institutions and retail stores, and some were distributed
via door-to-door sales. The recall was initiated after studies concluded the
recalled product may be linked to four E. coli O157:H7 illnesses in
While steaks generally are not considered a high-risk source of E. coli O157:
H7, FSIS says some of the recalled products were needle tenderized, which may
have transferred surface bacteria internally.
To download the new American National Cattlewomen(ANCW) food irradiation brochure go to : http://www.mnbeef.org/
Irradiated
Foods
Booklet Provides Science-based Information on Food
Irradiation: The American Council on Science
& Health booklet on irradiated foods can
be downloaded from: http://www.acsh.org/publications/booklets/irradiated2003.html.
Food Irradiation
Education Activities:
The
Syracuse,
NY; August 26-Sept. 6,
2004; New York State Fair in cooperation with American National CattleWomen and New York Beef Industry Council
St.
Paul, MN;
August 26-Sept. 6, 2004; Minnesota State Fair in cooperation with American
National CattleWomen and Minnesota Beef Council