ABSTRACT
Irradiation as a process for the treatment of food has been the subject of investigations and concerns. Irradiation of food is known to cause a variety of effects in food, much the same as the effects caused by more traditional processing of food, such as cooking. These include changes in chemical composition that could affect organoleptic properties or nutritional quality. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made some changes in the way it has traditionally evaluated irradiation. These changes have resulted in the FDA being able to identify some uses of irradiation that it believes are safe. The FDA had been working closely with the Departments of Defense and Agriculture on the nutritional and toxicological aspects of irradiated foods during the early 1950s. The Food Additives Amendment, as eventually enacted, did not differentiate between intentional and incidental food additives and thereby provided the FDA with great flexibility in dealing with the various issues it faces concerning food additives.
