More on Public Fear and Ignorance: Irradiated Food
It's been a while since I've posted on public ignorance, but having read most of the John Stossel * book I received for Christmas, I've got a whole new list of things to post about.
Today, we talk about irradiated food.
Just like with the story behind the name MRI[1], people hear the word "irradiate" and they freak out. Eek! Radiation! People will start turning into Dr. Octopi if they eat such food!
In this case, they freaked out so much that states began banning irradiated food under pressure from the public and environmentalists, thanks to crappy reporting by ignorant science reporters.
Get a clue and educate yourselves, people! Do you even know what radiation is?
Radiation is the transmission of very small particles through space. Think of them as little bullets.
It is not some green, cancer-causing ooze.
Radioactive material is (dangerous) material that emits these little "bullets". Think of radioactive material as you would think of a gun.
Now let me ask you this, if I were to take a 14 guage and shoot a deer, should I then eat the meat? Why the heck not?
Does the deer morph into a shotgun? Um, no.
In the same way, all you do when you irradiate food is shoot a billion smaller-than-microscopic holes through it, killing all of the dangerous bacteria inside. The food in no way becomes radioactive any more than a shot deer mutates into a bazooka and begins blasting the hunter who shot it.
(Of course, if you had someone irradiate you, that would not be terribly smart. Having billions of smaller-than-microscopic holes shot through you would result in you having millions of smaller-than-microscopic holes in your DNA. Holes in DNA equals bad, very bad.)
There, was that terribly complicated to understand? I should hope not.
But no, the reporters who originally started this scare didn't bother taking two minutes to check out the facts. Instead, they cared more about a "good" story, which nearly always involves fear-mongering. Instead, the brilliant company that came up with the idea went out of business and the entire industry was shut down.
Ignoring the people who lost money because of this, consider the loss of lives. Have you ever heard of E. coli, perhaps? Raw meat is swarming with bacteria, and there are a whole slew of them out there that don't like humans very much.
John Stossel reports that the Centers for Disease Control believes that a million cases of bacterial infection, including 350 lives saved, could be avoided per year if only half of our food were irradiated.
Plus our food would not spoil as quickly.
If you don't take the CDC's word for it, the World Health Organization and American Medical Association also agree, as do the FDA and the USDA.
(Ironically, the same thing occurred when Dr. Pasteur came up with his method of purifying milk. People freaked out then too, claiming that "raw" milk was somehow better.)
People also do not realize that spices have been irradiated for over 20 years.
So please, shoot my food with radiation; I'll gladly pass on getting food poisoning.
*For those of you who do not know of John Stossel, he is a reporter for the ABC TV news magazine show "20/20". He is known for doing investigative reports he titles, "Give Me a Break!" They tend to focus on scams, urban legends, and other such lies. He also is a Libertarian, which is a very nice change from the constant Republican vs. Democrat battle in the states. The book is titled, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. Can you see why I like him?
Today, we talk about irradiated food.
Just like with the story behind the name MRI[1], people hear the word "irradiate" and they freak out. Eek! Radiation! People will start turning into Dr. Octopi if they eat such food!
In this case, they freaked out so much that states began banning irradiated food under pressure from the public and environmentalists, thanks to crappy reporting by ignorant science reporters.
Get a clue and educate yourselves, people! Do you even know what radiation is?
Radiation is the transmission of very small particles through space. Think of them as little bullets.
It is not some green, cancer-causing ooze.
Radioactive material is (dangerous) material that emits these little "bullets". Think of radioactive material as you would think of a gun.
Now let me ask you this, if I were to take a 14 guage and shoot a deer, should I then eat the meat? Why the heck not?
Does the deer morph into a shotgun? Um, no.
In the same way, all you do when you irradiate food is shoot a billion smaller-than-microscopic holes through it, killing all of the dangerous bacteria inside. The food in no way becomes radioactive any more than a shot deer mutates into a bazooka and begins blasting the hunter who shot it.
(Of course, if you had someone irradiate you, that would not be terribly smart. Having billions of smaller-than-microscopic holes shot through you would result in you having millions of smaller-than-microscopic holes in your DNA. Holes in DNA equals bad, very bad.)
There, was that terribly complicated to understand? I should hope not.
But no, the reporters who originally started this scare didn't bother taking two minutes to check out the facts. Instead, they cared more about a "good" story, which nearly always involves fear-mongering. Instead, the brilliant company that came up with the idea went out of business and the entire industry was shut down.
Ignoring the people who lost money because of this, consider the loss of lives. Have you ever heard of E. coli, perhaps? Raw meat is swarming with bacteria, and there are a whole slew of them out there that don't like humans very much.
John Stossel reports that the Centers for Disease Control believes that a million cases of bacterial infection, including 350 lives saved, could be avoided per year if only half of our food were irradiated.
Plus our food would not spoil as quickly.
If you don't take the CDC's word for it, the World Health Organization and American Medical Association also agree, as do the FDA and the USDA.
(Ironically, the same thing occurred when Dr. Pasteur came up with his method of purifying milk. People freaked out then too, claiming that "raw" milk was somehow better.)
People also do not realize that spices have been irradiated for over 20 years.
So please, shoot my food with radiation; I'll gladly pass on getting food poisoning.
*For those of you who do not know of John Stossel, he is a reporter for the ABC TV news magazine show "20/20". He is known for doing investigative reports he titles, "Give Me a Break!" They tend to focus on scams, urban legends, and other such lies. He also is a Libertarian, which is a very nice change from the constant Republican vs. Democrat battle in the states. The book is titled, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. Can you see why I like him?