Food irradiation

Under production and handling conditions, food contains always a number of harmful microorganisms such as a Salmonella sp, Escherichia coli, Listeria nomocytogenes, Clostridium sp, that are responsible for thousand of illneses. The consequence is need of food preservation.
Food preservation (microbial decontamination) by irradiation is need is a very effective technically feasible, economically viable and safe physical process. Irradiation processing of food is a well controlable technology, requires no additives and is highly efficient.

The advantages of the are:

preservation of foods by elimination microorganisms and parasites, ensuring safety of consumption,
prolongation the storage time of fresh fruits and vegetables (limitation of ripening germination or going bad this products).

After evaluation of the results of extensive wholesomeness studies on irradiated food it was concluded that irradiation of any food up to an overall dose of 10 kGy presents no toxicological hazard and irradiated food do not pose specific microbiological and nutration problems.
The activity of the INCT Pilot Plant for Food Irradiation includes studies on new EB irradiation technologies concerning agricultural products, raw materials utilized in pharmaceutical industry, raw materials utilized in perfumery and cosmetics industry. The INCT Pilot Plant allows to irradiate only those agricultural products ( spices, dried aromatic herbs, potatoes, onions, garlic, dry vegetables and dry mushrooms), which obtained the permission by the Ministry of Public Health and Social Care.

in Polish