Also, I think having fruit treated with radiation is better than finding a Black Widow in your grapes...
(07-26-2013, 04:25 PM)Mr Maps Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, that sounds like a myth. Particularly as radiation is just the movement of energy. It could be that they're treated with thermal radiation - that would be completely detrimental to what they were trying to achieve, but you get the point.
Also, my family freaked out when I told them that oranges sold in this country are dyed to make them orange, until I told them it uses a gas that's naturally emitted by some fruits anyway.
It's not dyed, it's natural colour that develops. The ethylene (gas) causes the chlorophyll pigments (the green colour) to break down and the carotenoid (orange colour) to pop since the green colour just masks the carotenoid pigments.
The fruits are ripe but their external colour is not fully developed, so they treat them with ethylene (the normal ripening hormone that is produced by most fruits and vegetables) to develop the orange colour since the general public assume green fruit is unripe and yellow/orange fruit is ripe and sweet.
Ahh, okay. That makes sense.
(07-26-2013, 04:12 PM)debbie Wrote: [ -> ]If you radiate fruit and veg, they don't become radioactive and it doesn't decrease the nutritional value.
I'm not saying it becomes radioactive. I'd like a source for it not decreasing the nutritional value though.
Quote:Although, extended storage can cause a decrease in nutritional value due to the oxidation and the general decay process. They radiate the fruits and vegetables for phytosanitary and quarantine reasons when exported/imported - it sterilize/kills insects that might have snuck in the packaging.
That's great, but do I really want to be eating food that has been radiated over organic food? I don't think so. Surprisingly, organic food doesn't have spiders or bugs crawling all over it, despite the fact that it isn't radiated. (Note that Walmart doesn't even sell organic fruits and veggies here in the US.)
Quote:Radiation treatment is perfectly legal even though there is a lot of controversy around it since the general public is so scared if they
With all the other stuff they do to food (look at companies like Mansanto; I posted something about them above), I don't really see why I should be ok with radiation in my food. I know it's minor. I also suspect that even "non-harmful" radiation could be a problem over time. A lot of this stuff is approved by the FDA (the US Food and Drug Administration) without any longterm testing being done. I'm the kind of guy who likes to know if there's going to be any negative effects 15/20 years down the road.
Sam, personally I trust what Debbie is saying since this is her field of study/work and she teaches classes on this.
(07-26-2013, 05:49 PM)Grungie Wrote: [ -> ]Sam, personally I trust what Debbie is saying since this is her field of study/work and she teaches classes on this.
I'm not saying she isn't right. But I am saying that I'm not sure I'm willing to eat that over organic food. Plus, the FDA takes a rather lax view on testing these things. Testing may be stricter in SA than here.