The old adage is that prevention is better than cure, but is this the case with spinach or lettuce?
The New York Times reports that the FDA has approved irradiation of some produce namely fresh spinach and iceburg lettuce. The FDA's statement has caused a lot of interest and a mixed response. Marion Nestle has written a blog post on the subject as have a number of other bloggers. Professor Nestle has put one point of view whilst some welcome the process as it will be another production tool that can be used to address microbiological contamination and minimise risk to the consumer.
The Radura is the international symbol indicating a food product has been irradiated and the produce will bear the symbol and statements ‘treated with radiation’ or ‘treated by irradiation. As a consumer I would definitely like to be able to make the choice between eating irradiated and non-irradiated produce so I hope that this would extend to food service too.
The underlying point though is whether we should have pre-requisite programmes in place to minimise the risk of contamination of our food and irradiation would then be used as a corrective action in the event of a problem being identified during monitoring; or whether irradiation would replace or be a substitute for the pre-requisite programme. Would I want to eat food that was safe but had been irradiated because there was:
- No food safety risk assessment;
- No irrigation water standards;
- No personal hygiene programme;
- No pest control programme (rats, mice etc);
- No premises and equipment hygiene standards;
- No intake inspection and supplier approval process;
- No packaging control procedures;
- No training procedures?
I think I have pressed the point enough. Nearly a year ago I wrote an article on quality assurance or quality control and made a similar argument.
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