If feds have their way, your food is about to "catch some rays"

I know many of you still aren't eating peanut products in the wake of the deadly peanut salmonella outbreak of this winter. It will probably be some time before you're comfortable enough to do that again. And it's hard to blame you. But believe it or not, the recent wave of food-borne sicknesses could lead to something that would be worse for our food supply than the occasional salmonella outbreak: more food irradiation.

Federal officials believe that it could be possible to do away with deadly food bacteria by zapping them with X-rays. It's a stupid idea, but it's been able to grab a toehold in food safety circles because of the devastating effect these outbreaks have had on both the population and the food industry's bottom line (I'll leave it to you which of these they probably think is more important).

So the food will have no nutritional value whatsoever - but hey, at least it won't kill you! The fact is, irradiation turns even the most nutritious foods into junk foods. Sure, it kills the fungi, parasites, and bacteria that can cause spoilage and disease, but it also obliterates the good stuff in food, too.

In this latest push for irradiation, the focus has switched from gamma rays to X-rays because it exposes the food to less radiation. Gamma rays destroy bacteria by obliterating the DNA. Foods are usually exposed to gamma ray doses of up to 3,000,000 rads. (To put that in perspective, a dose of just 10,000 rads will totally destroy any living tissue. Appetizing, isn't it?)

But just because X-rays don't have the same nutrition-destroying effect as gamma rays doesn't mean there's no danger. If you've ever worn a lead-lined vest while receiving a hospital X-ray, I'm sure you'd think twice before munching on a bowl of peanuts that's been shot full of a mega-dose of X-ray radiation.

"We think food irradiation in general is a tool that, like other treatments that reduce pathogens, has great potential for food safety," according to the CDC's director of the Division of Foodborne, Bacterial, and Mycotic Diseases Robert Tauxe. "I think food would be safer if we made a lot more use of it."

Of course it's safer… because it's dead! Is that so hard to understand?

The FDA has already expanded the approved use of irradiation by food manufacturers, and of course this government agency is in lock-step with the CDC in their acceptance and support of irradiation (as you know, the government loves a quick fix).

The last bastion against irradiation is organic foods, which by law cannot be subjected to any form of irradiation and retain their organic status. The fact that organic farms still function and have yet to be tied to the same kinds of mass food catastrophes shows that food doesn't have to be nuked to be safe.

Sadly, irradiation is gaining in popularity because it's cheaper and faster. And you get what you pay for.

It's all in how you say it

I know that medical research has a lot to compete with these days. It's not just TV and radio and newspapers like it was in the good ol' days. Now it's the new media, blogs, podcasts, and about a billion other things on the Web. Unfortunately, this means that even serious medical research has to "Jerry Springer-ize" itself to get noticed amid all the cacophony.

The unfortunate downside of this is that it's causing research to put silly tabloid-style spins on their research findings in order to grab headlines or a few precious moments of a TV news broadcast. It's the People Magazine view of medical research.

A perfect example: a new British study that's found that kids with sedentary lifestyles are at double the risk for asthma. Important information right? Sadly, the researchers defined "sedentary" by measuring the number of hours that kids watched TV. Thus, the headline of the study: "Two Hours Glued to TV Doubles Kids' Asthma Risk."

Does actual TV watching have anything to do with asthma? Of course not. I wish researchers would be less concerned about getting the public's attention. If they were, they'd realize that the simple truth they've uncovered - that inactive kids could be at a serious risk for asthma - is more compelling than their tabloid headline.