Grant:
>Just to clarify, would a raw-fooder shun irradiated food?
I would guess that well above 98% of raw-fooders would be opposed to
irradiation. Most of them are into organics. In fact, Jean-Louis is the
only rawist I ever heard of in my life who poo-poos irradiated food. (But
in all other respects he is a good enough fellow ;) ;))
Seriously, irradiation has _unknown_ effects on foods. We don't even know
what is inside a carrot and never will, really (once we cut it open the
inside becomes a new surface, oxidizing, mechanically damaged, etc.). No
one knows what is inside irradiated food, but you can bet it is not the
molecules our digestive systems have evolved synergisticly with.
Personally I am much more wary of irradiated food than cooked food. Thanks
to forest fires, lava, hot pools, etc. nature has sometimes been cooked
since their has been an organism eating. As for humans, we have been
cooking for a pretty lengthy period of time (12,000 years ago or 2,000,000
years ago--take your pick or throw your own dart). Our metabolism has had
some serious experience with certain cooked foods for many generations.
But irradiation is doing something _new_ to food, something our metabolisms
probably hasn't had any experience with, much less time to evolve (or
attempt to evolve) adaptations. JL says an irradiated avo turns black
instead of ripens. This is new "behavior" for an avo. It seems that most of
a food's enzymatic activity is disrupted by irradiation. Besides its
ability to kill "germs", food industrialists love irradiation because it
extends shelf-life. Meat that doesn't age, avos that don't ripen, lychees
that don't rot for weeks--these are weird foods. For my money they may be
closer to a Twinkie (which doesn't rot for decades) than a fresh (or frozen
or cooked) paleolithic food.
Interestingly, there is currently a big debate here on the Big Island
(Hawaii) about irradiation. Current customs regs make distributing Hawaiian
produce on the mainland very difficult. Those pineapples have been very
thoroughly fumigated. Many other island-grown fruits like lychees, mangos,
etc. have much stricter restrictions, usually requiring hot water
treatments which barely leave a sellable product and have not proven
economical. So...the government here is pushing an irradiation facility
where Hawaiian produce can be irradiated before shipping to the
mainland--which would be quite a boost for the industry, provide jobs, etc.
There, of course, is a huge grass roots opposition and it is all pretty
ugly to watch--both sides seem to specialize in propaganda and
disinformation, both sides have research and scientists on their side.
It will be interesting to watch the irradiation stuff unfold over the next
decade. But for someone serious about a paleolithic diet, I can't imagine
the arguments _for_ irradiated food. If it is germs/parasites one is afraid
of, cooking seems to solve that problem, no? Shelflife? Refridgeration,
freezing, cryovaking, home-gardening, modern food distribution, etc have
extended the available range of relatively fresh foods immensely already.
So my thoughts are basically twofold: 1] irradiation is a great unknown
(with plenty of research arguing against), and 2] what is the actual
advantage to the consumer?
Cheers,
Kirt
PS. I guess the cholesterol survey was a bust, eh? Well, I tried... ;)
Secola /\ Nieft
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