From the September 2007 Idaho Observer:

The harmful effects of irradiated foods

Food irradiation is the process of exposing food to high doses of gamma radiation. Proponents of this process claim it kills all pests, eggs, and larvae, controls sprouting and ripening, and extends the shelf-life of food.

What is the process whereby radiation enters a live food (raw fruits and vegetables), and selectively accomplishes these purported ends, while at the same time, does not destroy the electrical life and nature of the food? Dr. Valerie Hunt of the Bio-energy Fields Foundation in California has carefully documented her findings about the bioelectricity of cells. This is done with an ultraviolet film technique that exposes the electrical output of any life form. In vivid color she reveals the changing luminescent fields that surround living foods and the lack of any electrical life around processed, cooked or irradiated food.

Food irradiation is a deadly technology that a small cadre of nuclear energy proponents, in concert with the U.S. Department of Energy, is trying to foist upon us. The DOE and the nuclear weapons/energy industries are stuck with some of the most toxic chemical and highly radioactive waste known to man. Their tactic to eliminate this waste problem lies in the establishment of a food irradiation industry, which they have been trying to implement since President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program was launched in the 1950s.

This is comparable to the dilemma faced by the aluminum and fertilizer industries concerning their highly toxic by-product, fluoride. They devised the ingenious but destructive scheme of water and produce fluoridation. The U.S. government won’t permit any product containing sodium fluoride to be shipped anywhere in interstate commerce, because it is a deadly poison, but permits it to be added to our water supply at our expense. Please explain the process whereby an inert mephitic substance can enter the body, hail a cab to the teeth, enter them and miraculously prevent cavities. Those with just an elementary grasp of physiology realize the preposterousness of this idea.

In the irradiation process, foods are placed on a conveyer belt and pass through a long biologically shielded irradiator source chamber, past a cobalt 60 or Cesium 137 irradiator source plaque. The foods are then exposed for one or two minutes to high-dose beams of radiation. One chest X-ray is the equivalent of one RAD (Roentgen absorbed dose). Exposure to 300 RADs would kill half the people directly exposed and sterilize the rest of them. In food irradiation, fruits and vegetables can receive up to 100,000 RADs. The food itself does not become radioactive – unless there is an equipment malfunction or radiation leak. Instead, nutritious, living food becomes at once denatured, deranged and dead.

The cells in the human body appear to be very sensitive to the gamma radiation-altered digestive secretions produced by irradiated foods. Carbohydrates in irradiated foods may impair cell division. Fats and fatty acids are changed into peroxides and other toxic chemicals. Other completely new compounds created during irradiation have not been tested for carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, or teratogenicity, but, rest assured, they are destructive to the human organism.

Dr. Edward Maxie performed studies for ten years (1963 – 73) on the use of gamma radiation to control post-harvest diseases in fruits and vegetables, with support from the Atomic Energy Commission. They found that diseases were often worse in irradiated than in non-irradiated citrus, because radiation-induced cellular injury and destruction cause reduced levels of the commodity’s disease resistance.

Research concludes that irradiated strawberries "weep" from irradiation-caused injury when they are cut, citrus is also more sensitive to "chilling" injury, and changes occur in the color, odor, flavor, and texture of other irradiated produce, which may then require the addition of synthetic chemical flavoring additives, also proven to be harmful to humans.

A crisis of confidence in modern medicine and technology is prevalent. The architects of yesterday’s so-called advances warn us against the dangers of the "miracle cures" and techno-"progress" that they are inventing today.