On 19 Jun 2005 17:01:46 -0700, wrote:

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
"john jardine" writes:

wrote in message
oups.com...
It may not sound like a serious question, but it is.

[..]

About 10 years ago, prior to their stock market flotation,
www.isotron.com/home.htm were being hailed by market brokers as the next
license to print money. Isotron's food irradiation technology was going to
be the enabling means for the big food providers to massively reduce wastage
and increase their profits.
Fortunately, just before flotation, the U.K. government took onboard the
advice of it's scientists and made food irradiation illegal. Isotron had to

It's not illegal in the UK (see my other posting, although it
only went to uk.d-i-y).

quickly scramble into other areas.
Hasn't though stopped a number of scumbag operators who irradiate food
declared 'unfit for human consumption' and feed it back into our food chain.
Irradiation is particularly effective when used on rotting seafoods, (eg
Prawns). The usual process is to ship the stuff out to Holland (irradiation
is legal) irradiate it and then bring it back into UK.
Every couple of months a case come before the courts.

If irradiating is illegal, I still can't figure out (as an experiment) why a
punnet of Tesco's or Morrisons' 'fresh Strwaberries' can spend 3 weeks
outside in the garden and yet not rot.

They were packed with a piece of bubble wrap, filled
with slow release sulphur dioxide most likely.

I don't know about strawberries in particular, but irradiation
actually doesn't work on some soft fruits -- a few days later
they are a pile of mush. Cucumbers are an example.

gassing them at packing time will extend their life a fair bit.

NT

With Sulfur Dioxide, forming Sodium Bisulfite, of which I am very
allergic... ba-a-a-ad headaches. Asthmatics can die from exposure to
Sodium Bisulfite, that's why it is prohibited from salad bars in the
US.

Wines have some naturally, but I only seem to react to the additive
variety.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.