Irradiation doesn't make food radioactive. Translated, these are chemicals produced when food is irradiated that are not made when food is frozen, canned, boiled, steamed, fried, barbecued, microwaved or just cooling on the plate while Dad drones endlessly about the stock market before dinner. As far as The Why Files can determine, there aren't any significant URPs, and about the only reliable irradiation problem is destroying a small percentage of some B vitamins in meat. That drawback was not enough to prevent the process from being approved by dozens of major scientific and public health organizations that are intrigued by the possibility of reducing foodborne diseases. This list includes the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association.
Some people attribute the deafening silence to a lack of advertising by food processors.
Masefield says researchers find much greater acceptance after consumers hear information about how safe the process really is. They really want to have a choice as far as what they can buy. Consumers are becoming aware of needless food poisoning. Yet while Isomedix worries about choice, it also favors making the irradiation notice on packages harder to see. Radiation is not user-friendly, it connotes bad symbols and signs, it's associated with nuclear accidents in the past.