An exposure to 60Co

Still catching up on back issues of Liberty, which yields another QFTD, May '07 in fact:

. . . only about 1% of our meat and produce is irradiated. The FDA has dragged its feet, considering irradiation some kind of food additive. They allow irradiation of meat, but with a warning label about possible risks! No such label is required for untreated meat that is laden with microbes . . if Public Citizen, food activists, and the FDA had been around in Pasteur's time, we wouldn't have pasteurization today.

Gary Jason in Bug Out, Reflections

Jason's post was inspired by discovery of salmonella contaminating peanut butter.

Would irradiation have worked on eggs?

Contaminated food scares seem to be more common now than when I was a kid. I don't know whether it's true or just more noticeable. It it's true, I'd like to know whether it's because food processors (or regulators) are just more careless, or we're just producing so much more, or exchanging foods more widely across the planet, or perhaps the contaminating organisms are just tougher now and breaking through the formerly adequate measures that processors have deployed against them.

Regardless, a few more scares like this one and maybe more Americans will be open to a broad use of irradiation, and vigorous tracking of which foods, and handling methods, yield better safety.