Hi everybody this is Monica Reinagel and you're listening to the

nutrition diva quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous

today's episode was suggested by Samir, who wanted to know more about food

irradiation and whether this is something we need to be concerned about when we're

shopping for foods. So today I'm going to take a closer look at the pros and the cons.

In 2008, after thousands of people were sickened

by contaminated spinach and lettuce,

the FDA decided to allow the use of irradiation

to kill harmful

microorganisms in fresh spinach and lettuce.

And the hope was that this would make these products

safer for consumers.

Now the use of ionizing radiation in the food supply

isn't new. It's been going on since the

60s, but the ruling reignited a debate over whether this practice is safe. Food

radiation has two main purposes. Number one, to reduce the risk of foodborne illness and

number two to retard the spoilage of fresh foods.

Irradiation, which is also known as ionizing radiation,

involves exposing foods to controlled doses of radiation,

from x-rays or from electron beams or gamma rays.

There's a couple of different ways that they can do it.

At very low doses, irradiation can kill insects and parasites that might be in the food.

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