Irradiawho?!

Hey yall!!

I hope you are having a fabulous day!! I just finished a pretty awesome 2 mile run!! How have you moved today??

I wanted to talk to yall about irradiation. Irradiation is the process of exposing something to radiation. You may be thinking I thought this blog was about nutrition and exercise and mental health?:/ Why are talking about irradiation?! Well turns out A LOT of the foods we eat are irradiated in a process called food irradiation. We actually discussed this process in my Food Science class. It is something that I had actually never heard of so I wanted to bring it to yall's attention in case you haven't heard of this process either. There are many pros and cons to food irradiation. I don't want to make any opinions for anyone but I do think food in its most raw form is probably always the best way to go, at least nutrient wise. However, irradiation does remove a significant amount of microogranisms and prevents premature spoilage. These sound like great things right? Yes, they are but while they do these great things for us they also remove vitamins and enzymes key to everyday health. So should we eat irradiated foods and support the continuation of this process because it removes pathogens and just take a vitamin and hope for the best? Or do we fight the continuation of this process and research other methods of food preservation? We could all buy organic foods but I know these are not always readily availble and they are often quite expensive. How much money is too much to spend on a long and healthy life, though? Health is wealth after all. Again, I personally am pretty torn about this whole process because of everything I said above so I am going to leave it to yall to form your own opinions on it. I just wanted to bring it to your attention so that you could at least make an educated choice when purchasing the foods that will be fueling the lives of you and your families!!

Below are some links with information on food irradiation. There is a link for the USDA which promotes food irradiation and then a link for Organic Consumers which promotes the end of food irradation. I would suggest looking over both sites before forming a solid opinion.

Reasons to be for it: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Irradiation_and_Food_Safety/index.asp

Reasons not to be for it: http://www.organicconsumers.org/irradlink.cfm

P.S. This is the symbol that will be on food packages if that food has been irradiated.
 (http://www.organicconsumers.org/irradlink.cfm)

Let me know what find out there and what you decide. I'd love to read about your opinions!!!! Happy shopping and remember to look for labels. If you do not know what a symbol means, google it. For you never know where you food has been, how its been treated, and how it might affect you in the long run.

Happy shopping!!

<3 Haley