Executive director of Food & Water Watch and author of the new book Zapped! Irradiation and the Death of Food, Hauter said today: “As stores and restaurants around the country pull tomatoes from shelves and menus in response to the recent salmonella outbreak, American tomato farmers are poised to lose their livelihoods and the food irradiation industry sees dollar signs.
“Whenever there’s a food poisoning outbreak, we hear about irradiation as the panacea for foodborne illness, but irradiation is in fact expensive, impractical, and ineffective. Just like irradiating dirty meat doesn’t make it clean or wholesome, irradiating vegetables is impractical and dangerous. Pushing this technology only serves the food industry’s ever-growing appetite to cut costs and increase profits. Rather than deceive the public that ‘zapping’ food will make them safer, the food industry and government must address the real problems in food production — too-fast processing lines, too-long distances for food to travel, and dirty conditions at food processing plants.”