On Friday May 26 th the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced a proposal to irradiate imported fruits and vegetables to prevent bugs including fruit flies and the mango seed weevil from threatening American agriculture. This threatens the quality of the food we eat and the ability of small farmers to make a living. It could be the beginning of the end of fresh fruits and veggies in the U.S. Industry is bent on deciding for us what kind of food we eat by trying to eliminate labeling that tells us if the food is treated with dangerous irradiation technology. Both control methods are fraught with problems. The USDA, itself, admits that there are other ways to control fruit flies and mango weevils.
Irradiation is a technology that is fraught with problems.
The USDA's Agriculture Research Service has reported that irradiating food results in major losses of vitamins A, C, E, and the B complex. These losses will force the very old, very young and the sick to take even more pills to compensate for nutrition that exists in non-irradiated food. Radiation also creates changes similar to the rotting process, but kills the things that let consumers know that the food is rotten. It has been used to kill odorous bacteria in spoiled fish unfit for human consumption. I do not want to eat rotten food without knowing it.