When food is irradiated for preservation and for preventing sprouting, have any harmful chemicals or radicals been identified?
Food irradiation is known as a cold process, since the energy imparted to the food is very low, the chemical changes resulted are also very minimal. More than 40 years of intensive research could not identify any unique radiolytic product, making it difficult to distinguish irradiated food from non-irradiated one by simple chemical analysis. The free radical produced are also short lived depending on the medium in the food. More water content gives faster dissipation of the radical.
