Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [76]
Although the advice given in such campaigns makes perfect sense, the education alternative hardly appears adequate to deal with problems of food safety, especially when focused exclusively or primarily on consumers. Scientifically based or not, the educational programs of the partnership, the USDA, and food corporations are directed toward a minor source of foodborne illness at the very end of the food chain. If anything, food producers, processors, and servers are the groups most in need of education about food safety. If, for example, meat and poultry producers better understood their role in the safety of the food supply, they might be less hostile and more receptive to the value of Pathogen Reduction: HACCP. They might understand why it is so important to institute healthier working conditions and more comprehensive training programs for employees. As noted earlier, food handlers typically earn the minimum wage, receive no sick leave or health benefits, and may not have obtained much education. Many workers in meat and poultry processing plants are illegal immigrants with even less access than others to such benefits.16 These labor issues affect food safety because they lead to unsafe handling practices such as washing hands infrequently, staying on the job while sick, and failing to obtain treatment for intestinal infections. Education of employees would help, but education alone is not enough to ensure safe food. If we as a society are serious about preventing foodborne illness, we need to make certain that everyone who handles food is educated, is paid adequately, and, when needed, obtains sick leave and health care.
ALTERNATIVE #2: IRRADIATE
Because regulatory approaches to food safety are endlessly obstructed, and educational approaches do not address underlying causes, the food industry and some health officials urge more immediate action: irradiate foods to kill pathogens. Here is how Dr. Michael Osterholm, a leading national expert on foodborne illness, explains the meaning of the Hudson ground beef recall discussed in chapter 3:
The current recall reinforces the impression that government can fully protect us against contamination of our food supply, and that when problems do occur, they’ll quickly be fixed. The truth is quite the opposite. . . . Routine testing of the product will not provide us with a reliable way to detect every single episode of contamination. . . . There is one major step we, as a society, can take toward producing safer food. The answer is irradiation.17
Dr. Osterholm and many others fully agree that irradiation kills unwanted microbes. It uses the elements cobalt-60 and cesium-137 or electric current as sources of gamma rays, x-rays, or electron beams to bombard foods. These rays disrupt the genetic material (DNA) of cells in proportion to the intensity of the source element and the length of exposure. Lower or shorter bouts of radiation reduce the number of microbes on a food; higher and longer exposures can kill all of them.
Contrary to the belief of some critics, irradiation does not cause the foods themselves to become radioactive, and its physical effects on food are not so different from those induced by cooking (which also disrupts cell structures). High-intensity irradiation induces minor losses of nutrients as well as slight changes in color, flavor, and odor, particularly in fatty meats. Whether these changes matter depends on point of view. Proponents of irradiation view taste disadvantages as minor in comparison to the ravages of E. coli O157:H7. From the perspective of science-based risk assessment, the benefits of food irradiation far outweigh taste considerations.18
The sterility induced by irradiation, however, is usually incomplete and temporary. The foods must be irradiated in intact packages; once the packages are opened or damaged, foods