But you can't make a scientifically based argument based on something
you call "life force". What is "life force"? The combination of proteins,
sugars, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals that make up the food? Or
something mystical? It's like invoking a human soul. Many people may
believe in it's existence, but it cannot be scientifically proved or
disproved.
Anyway, right now producers and shippers apply large quantities of
fumigants and fungicides to produce shipped long distance. Not pleasant
to think about eating these things. I don't have all of the details, but it
seems that irradiation may be seen as an improvement over this.
>>> Patricia Dines <73652.1202@compuserve.com> 01/21/97 04:57am
>>>
Hi Dan,
<<Thanks for posting the E-Mail note you received.>>
You're welcome. Thanks for sharing the info you found out in return.
As to your points - I'm not an expert on irridiation, but the issues I see
from my understanding of the issue are:
1) Not that the food becomes radioactive (don't know if it does or not) but
that it becomes *changed*, modified in ways that we can't predict or
control, perhaps at a level smaller than we're used to considering
important, but perhaps still at a level important for life.
I'm skeptical to think that anything could so effectively kill all the kinds of
living organisms you mention in your quote and leave the main living
organism there, the food, unchanged. I don't eat food because it looks
like the food I want (ex. apple) but because I seek the vitality, the life
force, in it. Perhaps irradiated food has such an extended shelf life
because it's now missing some important component of life force. I think
it's arrogant to believe that we know enough about life force - something
we don't really study, in this materially-oriented world - that we can just
brush aside this real likelihood.
2) The second issue I have with it is choice and thus full labelling. I eat
my food for life force. I don't want someone taking that away without my
being able to make a choice about it. (Even with labelling, it's not perfect,
because one still wants to eat in restaurants and other people's homes
once in a while...)
3) The third is that I don't buy that it's necessary to take this risk, or that
the highest levels of necessity are being applied before taking this risk.
My understanding is that it's commonly used "just in case." In other
cases, I consider it highly likely that it's used to cover up food that
shouldn't be shipped/eaten in the first place. If the food is so infested,
perhaps not eating it is the smart response - not just getting rid of what
infested it (and a bunch of other things as well). Perhaps the infestation
indicates something not well about the food. Just like I think pesticides
are sometimes used to prop up plants that haven't been nourished,
instead of nourishing them properly.
<<I for one would much rather be able to buy fresh tropical fruits on the
mainland that are free of tropical fruit fly eggs and other insects than
take a chance on even one of them getting through.>>
Or, one can eat local, because that's the food with the highest vitality,
rather than having to kill food to ship it long distances!
Hope these thoughts are useful -
P. Dines