4 ms·
Ah, just run 'em all under a cobalt-60 source. (joke)
by ngvrnd 4y ago
Ah, just run 'em all under a cobalt-60 source. (joke)
- scythe 4y agoTo irradiate food, you need to keep the photon energy below 1.022 MeV, or you get residual radioactivity due to pair production.
- DoctorOetker 4y agowith pair production I assume you mean electron positron pairs? how is that harmful in food? the lifetime of a positron wouldn't be very long, or is the concern free radicals?
- DoctorOetker 4y agoas I thought pair production is irrelevant in food irradiation the tolerable limits in particle energies and doses are very high for truly tiny increases in induced radioactivity. its really marginal as long as the very conservative limits are respected. see for example: https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/te_1287_prn.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/te_1287_prn.p...
- scythe 4y agoSounds good to me. From a medical standpoint, I'm aware that irradiated food is perfectly safe. It's the political utility of saying "no residual radioactivity" that I was focused on. But I guess positrons probably aren't much different from electrons in causing that.
- brnt 4y agoEvery single strawberry sold commercially in the Netherlands is irradiated. Not for parasites, but fungus AFAIK.
- DoctorOetker 4y agoI thought most mass manufactured foodstuffs are irradiated in the West (but I somehow assumed X-ray tubes were used since they could be switched on and off, although a source may be cheaper...)