Problem of the Harmlessness of Using Food Products Sterilized by Means of Ionizing Radiation: USSR.

摘要

In employing radioactive radiations, the required sterilizing effect takes place at very high doses of irradiation, of the 2.lO rep order, and even higher. The use of such massive irradiation poses a very important problem, whether under these circumstances an artificial (induced) radioactivity originated in the food products. It is known further that as a result of the action of ionizing radiation there appear undesirable secondary changes in the physico-chemical and organoleptic indices of the sterilized products. This, in turn, poses the question of the possibility of formation of new chemical combinations in the food products possessing toxic properties in various degrees. All this has been the subject of various experiment al investigations and theoretical discussions. The task of this article consists of summing up certain data on the safety of food products which had been exposed to the action of ionizing radiation. It has been established (Baldwin, Clark, 1953) that irradiation of yeast with X-rays of an energy order of 100 mev leads to the formation of half-life radioactive isotopes -- basically oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen -- which possess a half-life maximally of 2.1 minute. A similar phenomenon was observed also by Summer (1952) at a gamma-ray energy above 21 mev. In other experiments (Mayneord, Martin, Layne, 1949) the induced radioactivity was already observed at 17 mev radiation energy. It has been determined (Horsley, Johns, Haslam, 1953) that artificial radioactivity, produced by X-rays of 24 mev energy, constituted approximately o.6 percent of the obtained dose.