Agricultural Refrigeration

[Samarjit Sen]

Could some one give some some information on application of gamma rays for extending the life of post harvest produces instead of CA system.

Recently I was made to understand that some work on this has been done in some countries and some cold storage owners have adopted this for extending the shelf life of some fruits and vegetables.

Information on this shall be appreciated.

[nh3wizard]

David Banner? "You wont like him when he's ANGRY" Attachment 1270

[US Iceman]

David Banner?

Some may not appreciate where this comment comes from. It's from the Incredible Hulk movie and comic books. That was a good one, wiz!

I have seen some websites and other information where radiation is being used on meat and fruit/vegetables to prolong shelf life.

I will have to do some "Googling" for some info.

Here are some links...
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/catalog/irradbro.html

http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/food.htm

http://ccr.ucdavis.edu/irr/

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/foo...x.cfm?parent=3

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/food_irrad.htm

http://www.iaea.org/icgfi/documents/foodirradiation.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biosaf..._legisl_en.htm

http://www.hps.org/documents/foodirradiation.pdf

http://www.fmi.org/consumer/irradiation/irrbro2.pdf

There are many more....

[US Iceman]

I tried to find some other links that included a bit more of the science.

http://uw-food-irradiation.engr.wisc...s_brochure.pdf

http://fsrio.nal.usda.gov/document_f...product_id=154

http://fsrio.nal.usda.gov/document_r...product_id=139

http://www.food-irradiation.com/

http://www.davisfreshtech.com/articl...rradiation.pdf

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/background/irrad_final.htm

http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/foods/458-300/458-300.html

[Samarjit Sen]

Thank you Iceman. I am going to down load the sites as intimated by you. Could you please let me know if this technology has been practically tried by any one and what had been the result.

With best wishes,

[Samarjit Sen]

Dear Iceman,

I have gone through the details as stated in the various links that you provided. Could this system be treated as an alternative to CA system?

[US Iceman]

That is a very good question. I'm afraid I cannot give you an absolute answer as this is venturing into the realm of food science.

Here are my thoughts on this.

If the irradiation reduces some of the food spoilage issues, does it completely eliminate all of them? I don't know the answer to this.

If the irradiation process does not, then the CA requirements may still be required for long term storage.

I suspect the cooling requirement would remain, but on the issue of CA storage I don't have the foggiest notion of what might happen.

[Samarjit Sen]

With whatever information I could get from you and some from other sources, I find that while refrigeration remains for storage, irradiation has certain limitations for prolonging the shelf life of the agricultural produces. Further there are some fruits and vegetables which can not be prolonged by irradiation. So the result is that CA still remains as the source for prolonging the shelf life of the produces under refrigeration condition.

However as my knowledge in this irradiation is very limited, I would like to know if it can replace CA system both technically as well as cost wise.