Talk:Food irradiation

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Swimmaaj, Cilla-g, Herna327. Peer reviewers: Surajdmeharwade, All any, Chronley.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Process section and subsections unreferenced

The Process Section and subsections contain many unreferenced facts that need to be verified or attributed. I went back over 2 years in the article and found that even at this time these comments where unreferenced. Maybe the ref "anon., Gamma Irradiators for Radiation Processing, IAEA, Vienna, 2005" is supposed to cover it all, but I do not know how to verify this.

"Misconceptions" section factually incorrect

"Irradiated food does not become radioactive, just as an object exposed to light does not start producing light."

This is not true for three reasons:

• There is natural radioactivity present in every food. Therefore, "does not become radioactive" is should be "does not become more radioactive beyond background radioactivity".
• Every object with non-zero absolute temperature produces light (photons). In my opinion the second part of the sentence is more confusing than helpful as it stands.
• The food does become more radioactive as a result of irradiation, but this is likely generally well below the background radiation.

"Radioactivity is the ability of a substance to emit high energy particles."

This is not true. It should be "...ability to produce radiation or particles by decay of the nucleus." The particles do not have to be high energy particles ("high energy" does not have any precise meaning either). From the relevant Wikipedia page: "Radioactive decay is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy (in terms of mass in its rest frame) by radiation, such as an alpha particle, beta particle with neutrino or only a neutrino in the case of electron capture, or a gamma ray or electron in the case of internal conversion."

"This ends shortly after the end of the exposure, much like objects stop reflecting light when the source is turned off and warm objects emit heat until they cool down but do not continue to produce their own heat."

This is untrue. See. It is perfectly possible for the radiation to create new isotopes which are active. Whether their amount is substantial is a different matter (it isn't, but the statement as it stands is false). The second part about reflection of light and heat is again just misleading in my opinion.

"It is impossible for food irradiators to induce radiation in a product."

This is quite simply untrue. See the referenced paper. Relevant section in the paper: "Four isotopes with activities exceeding 0.01 times the 40 K background and with half-lives less than 1 h, e.g. ³⁸Cl, ⁶⁹Zn, ⁸⁰Br and ¹²⁸I, would not be detectable a few hours after treatment. Two isotopes with activities exceeding 0.01 times the ⁴⁰K background and with half-lives greater than 1 h, e.g. ²⁴Na and ⁴²K, would be detectable during the first day after treatment, but would not be detectable several days later. The isotope with the longest half-life, ³²P, has an initial activity lower than 0.005 of the ⁴⁰K background in beef." Active elements are produced at low concentrations. This is directly contrary to what the section says currently.

"Irradiators emit electrons or photons and the radiation is intrinsically radiated at precisely known strengths (wavelengths for photons, and speeds for electrons)."

This is untrue. X-rays are likely produced in a spectrum of wavelengths. See the referenced paper. From the paper: "Some electron accelerators provide a broad electron energy spectrum. In order to evaluate the safety of irradiation at 7.5 MeV regardless of the electron energy beam spectrum, activation tests have been performed with two different irradiation facilities, with accelerators producing electrons with different (narrow and more wide) energy spectra."

"These radiated particles at these strengths can never be strong enough to modify the nucleus of the targeted atom in the food, regardless of how many particles hit the target material, and radioactivity can not be induced without modifying the nucleus."

This is untrue. See the referenced paper.

Overall, I don't mind the tone of the section, but the statements should be factually based. The topic of the article is on physics and it should be based on proper physics as opposed to hand waving.

Wikipedia is written with normal lay language meanings. In that context the wording is fine. We don't do things like ban the word "stationary" because "everything in the universe is moving". Likewise, a banana is not "radioactive". Alexbrn (talk) 13:07, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

While I agree that it should be a compromise between the level of details and being understandable, I think the errors are too egregious. The section can be rephrased in a much more correct way without sacrificing readability. The article is about nuclear physics in its essence, and it should be written accordingly. I think the distinction between background/natural radiation and high levels of radiation is not too hard to understand for most people. I would be keen to hear input from more editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.181.229.33 (talk) 13:19, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

As the person who wrote these sections I 100% agree, Please fix them, don't add additional tags for others to do so, and do them one by one with good citations. All but the first two bullets and the change in definition of radioactivity. Those are pedantic trash and nucleus decay is not necessary for radiation photon and electron radiation can be produced by election configuration changes.192.26.8.4 (talk) 19:03, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, did my quick pass on it.

• There is natural radioactivity present in every food. Therefore, "does not become radioactive" should be "does not become more radioactive beyond background radioactivity".
  • Pedantry, not an issue, not fixed
• Every object with non-zero absolute temperature produces light (photons).
  • Pedantry, not an issue, not fixed
• The food does become more radioactive as a result of irradiation, but this is likely generally well below the background radiation.
  • Reasonable, fixed
• "Radioactivity is the ability of a substance to emit high energy particles.": This is not true.
  • Your definition is even worse removed "high energy" and added atom as the subject
• "This ends shortly after the end of the exposure, much like objects stop reflecting light when the source is turned off and warm objects emit heat until they cool down but do not continue to produce their own heat.": This is untrue.
  • This is true when the nuculis is not modified. Made it clear that this refers to that case.
• "It is impossible for food irradiators to induce radiation in a product.": This is quite simply untrue.
  • added the word "significantly"
• "Irradiators emit electrons or photons and the radiation is intrinsically radiated at precisely known strengths (wavelengths for photons, and speeds for electrons).": This is untrue.
  • Added bit about spectrums.
• "These radiated particles at these strengths can never be strong enough to modify the nucleus of the targeted atom in the food, regardless of how many particles hit the target material, and radioactivity can not be induced without modifying the nucleus.": This is untrue.
  • This is true

Can anyone do anything themselves? 192.26.8.4 (talk) 19:47, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

SCHILL

This page is propaganda and maintained by the industry, I found out a long time ago. Irradiated food means genetically modified food. However the modifications are random.

Your chemistry accepts irradiated atoms and molecules as normal because the outer shells of

the molecules and atoms determine the chemistry of the material. On the other hand, the mutations happen in the deeper layers of the electron shells, and so you are taking in these ionized atoms for incorporation to your makeup . You will be incorporating particles with an overall electric charge on them, which is abnormal situation. It is ionizing radiation. What's the difference if you ionize your body versus ionizing your food. Recall that you are what you eat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:7491:9300:4C29:964B:EB6A:422E (talk) 14:06, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Palomaris, back again? You know you where banned. Your focus on electron shells gave you away. Modifying a lower orbit of an electron shell will propagate to the outer layers very quickly and re balance it self. It won't just sit that way. A change that results in cell death cannot be considered a mutation, as no new organism is produced from this genetic code. Also mutations are caused by chemical changes in DNA/RNA. These can be catalyzed by changes in the orbits if an atom in a DNA/RNA molecule is hit. But a lower orbit change does not equal a mutation and a lower orbit change does not equal a chemical one.192.26.8.4 (talk) 18:31, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

HELP REQUESTED! Tone of Article Revisited

To summarize a common concern this article still reads as overly promotional. Because of this, when people read it, it does not inspire confidence. To quote a previous commenter.

when I was reading the article all I could do is think "wow, was this written by a food irradiation machine salesman hoping to drum up some sales?" I am totally neutral on the subject, but I agree the tone is excessively PRO, almost desperately so, and it's annoying.

— 64.223.165.28, (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

This is my fault. So 5 or so years later I am trying to take a stab at fixing it up. To give some context to how it got this way. This article used to be in two sections. One for, and one against. I combined these sections. This is also why there is a lot of "opponents say X is true and therefore irradiation is bad, but science says Y". This is why it reads as if it is a response in a debate against the opponents of irradiation.

In my last few edits I have taken everything scientific and general about what happens to the target material when food is irradiated out of the impacts section, and moved it into the second subsection (irradiation process) taking other pages about scientific and industrial processes as a template. Now all that is left in the impacts section are things that are meant to disprove misconceptions, and an very detailed section on irradiating leafy greens. I have made 4 or so attempted edits to rework this section, but have canceled all of them. I am so desperate that I am soliciting for help on a talk page that on Wikipedia. No one ever reads these things. Please help me brainstorm ideas to fix this.192.26.8.4 (talk) 14:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I added a state of the industry section to put content that was in public perceptions into a neutral context. This involved moving misconceptions back to long term impacts. The long term impacts section and Indirect effects still needs lot of help, even more so now.192.26.8.4 (talk) 20:05, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Original research and unreliable sources

This edit was justified because there has been a substantial amount of original research (WP:OR) written into the article, with weak, unusable sources added. There are main reliable sources available, such as the FDA and CFIA, cited in the lede to affirm and make concise encyclopedic statements on food irradiation and its safety. Zefr (talk) 19:22, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Link to scam website

Roberts, P. B.; Hénon, Y. M. (September 2015). "Consumer response to irradiated food: purchase versus perception" (PDF). Stewart Postharvest Review. 11 (3:5). ISSN 1745-9656. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 14, 2017. Retrieved May 20, 2018. goes to "fat-boysbbq", seemingly a scam website. 128.146.98.58 (talk) 18:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah the url got usurped. I looked at Wikipedia:Link_rot#Repairing_a_usurped_link and marked the url as "usurped". Seems to have fixed it, but someone should double check. Thanks for pointing out the problem. Commander Keane (talk) 21:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)