The researchers behind a startling finding that cats fed irradiated food developed “severe neurological disease” only reported it as an afterthought. They instead chose to focus on the fact that the cats were able to recover from the disease after their diet returned to normal -- a testament to the healing powers of your body, yes, but completely overlooking what caused the damage in the first place.

After being fed a diet of irradiated foods, the cats developed “mysterious” and “remarkable” severe neurological dysfunction, including movement disorders, vision loss and paralysis.

When they were taken off the irradiated foods, they slowly recovered.

I was born and raised in Chicago and we have a term for this type of observation in our city -- it is called a CLUE!

This should be raising major red flags that irradiation is NOT as safe as food safety officials would have you believe, but then the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already turned a blind eye on decades’ worth of alarming data on food irradiation.

Irradiation is used to kill organisms like E. coli and salmonella on food. Currently, U.S. food processors are allowed to irradiate beef, eggs, poultry, oysters, fresh spinach, iceberg lettuce and spices.

The FDA maintains that irradiated foods are no different from non-irradiated foods, but the research begs to differ.

Alarming Research About Food Irradiation

The following is a sampling of research -- appearing in scientific journals and other publications -- that raise questions about the FDA's assertions that people who eat irradiated food have nothing to worry about.

• An FDA report from 1968 found significant adverse effects produced in animals fed irradiated food, including:

• o A decrease of 21 percent in surviving weaned rats
• o A 32 percent decrease in surviving progeny of dogs
• o Dogs weighing 11 percent less than animals on the control diets
• o Carcinomas of the pituitary gland, a particularly disturbing finding since this is an extremely rare type of malignant tumor

• A 1959 study in the Journal of Nutrition found that “a significant number of rats consuming irradiated beef died from internal hemorrhage within 46 days.”

• In 1981, a study in Mutation Research found that “freshly irradiated diets produced elevated levels of early deaths in [mice fetuses]... The increase in early deaths would suggest that the diet when irradiated has some mutagenic potential."

• In 1969, a study in Radiation Research found “considerable amounts of radioactivity were present in the liver, kidney, stomach, gastrointestinal tract, and blood serum of rats fed irradiated sucrose solutions. Radioactivity was present in urine and feces samples.”

• In 2000, a study in Food Irradiation concluded that "an increase in concentration of a mutagen in food by irradiation will increase the incidence of cancer. It will take four to six decades to demonstrate a statistically significant increase in cancer due to mutagens introduced into food by irradiation. When food irradiation is finally prohibited, several decades worth of people with increased cancer incidence will be in the pipeline."

These findings are not all that surprising when you consider what, exactly, irradiation is. According to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), here is the definition:

“Bombardment of a food by ionizing radiation: “gamma rays” from nuclear material, x-rays or high-speed electrons from electronic guns. They are used to kill bacteria in the food. Electrons are knocked off molecules and ricochet around in the food.

They break up cell walls, slice and dice chromosomes, kill enzymes, and create free radicals (oxygen atoms missing an electron).

These free radicals recombine to form stable compounds, or continue their destructive path.

Some of the compounds created are known to be cancer-causing (formaldehyde, benzene, lipid peroxides). Others have never been seen or studied before.”

Irradiation also destroys vitamins, disrupts the chemical composition of food, and causes similar changes as cooking, meaning that your fresh irradiated spinach may not contain all the beneficial properties that raw spinach naturally contains.

Who Does Irradiation Benefit?

Food safety officials like to pass irradiation off as the latest technology in food safety, and a way to keep dangerous organisms off of your food. In reality, what it does is give agribusiness the green light to grow and process their food in filthy conditions.

After all, they’re going to nuke everything later anyway, so why go to the trouble of actually growing your food in sanitary conditions to begin with? Irradiation is essentially a very effective medium for masking filthy conditions in slaughterhouses and food processing plants.

The solution to creating healthier, safer foods lies in cleaning up the growing conditions and processing plants, and most certainly in returning farming to a small-scale basis -- not in dousing our food with varying levels of radiation.

How to Avoid Irradiated Food

Fortunately, the FDA currently requires that irradiated foods include labeling with the statement "treated with radiation" or "treated by irradiation" and the international symbol for irradiation, the radura.

That might change in the future, but for now avoid all foods that contain these labels.

You can also avoid irradiation by choosing locally grown, organic foods as much as possible. Certified organic foods may not be irradiated, and foods from a small, local farm are unlikely to be either.

Getting to know a farmer near you (or joining a food coop with access to one) is one of the simplest ways to know how your food is grown and whether or not it’s irradiated.

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