When foods are exposed to ionizing radiation under conditions envisioned for commercial application, no significant impairment in the nutritional quality of protein, lipid and carbohydrate constituents was observed. Irradiation was no more destructive to vitamins than other food preservation methods. Protection of nutrients is improved by holding the food at low temperature during irradiation and by reducing or excluding free oxygen from the radiation milieu. 'Deceased. Kennedy (1965) observed little change in nutritive value of animal feeds (protein concentrates) when 0.5 and 1.0 Mrad doses were appliedand no nutritional changes with frozen eggs irradiated at 0.5 and 5.0 Mrad. Ley (1972Ley ( , 1975 noted excellent results with radappertized feed for germ-free rat and mouse colonies which were maintained for 5 years. Radappertization and radicidation have been used in preference to thermal sterilization to sustain germ-free and specific-pathogen-free rats, mice, pigs and chickens (Sato 1970;Schoen and Hiller 1971;Udes et al. 1971;Ley et al. 1969;Coates et al. 1963). Others have reported that both the biological value of proteins, and the metabolizable energy value, of composite rodent diets are unaltered by radappertization a t 5.6 Mrad (Raica and Howie 1966;Read et al. 1961;Kraybill 1960).
Food irradiation has gone through a long, but exciting period, from its conception at the end of the 19th century and a 50-year gestation period which ended with its birth following the violent and awesome beginning of the atomic age in the last days of World War I . It witnessed rapid growth during childhood and adolescence, a period where outstanding advances were made in the technology of food irradiation with the development of products meeting organoleptic, nutritional and sanitary standards equal to or exceeding those for foods processed by the established methods. Food irradiation now, with legal approval imminent, is at the threshold of entering adulthood with the realization of commercial application.161 Table 1. Chronology of some of the more significant events in the early history of nuclear science and food irradiation through
Fresh washed red hake (Urophycis chuss) mince without cryoprotectants was irradiated at 0 (control), 0.66 and 1.31 kGy and stored aerobically at 3.3"C. The total aerobic plate counts of the control and the low and high levels irradiated samples remained less than 10" CFU/ g for 4, 10, and 17 days, respectively. Gel strength decreased after irradiation of mince, and such decreases were dose-dependent. Irradiation extended sensory shelf life of unfrozen fish mince 12-18 days and microbiologically (< 10" CFU/g) 6-13 days longer than the unirradiated control.
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