I have the results of the last poll question “Would you participate in a national boycott of one of the major oil companies to help drive gas prices down?” The vote is in, and over 86% of you would participate in a boycott. I didn’t have any takers on helping do the research to see if the idea would work. My own solution to the gas prices is going to be stop worrying about the price of gas and keep track of gallons used. If all of us will start doing that and reduce our consumption by a few gallons a week I can promise that gas prices will come down. It is not that hard to do once we focus on that goal.
They say the process destroys E. coli and other potentially deadly microbes that chlorine doesn't kill in fruits and vegetables. But consumer groups are concerned.
By Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 11, 2008
Before bagged leafy greens wind up on your plate, they are washed, often three times, in a potent chlorine bath. But new research shows the steps that California companies rely on to protect consumers do not kill dangerous bacteria inside the leaves, whereas zapping them with radiation wipes them out.The debate over how to protect consumers from E. coli and other potentially deadly microbes has intensified since the fall of 2006, when at least 200 people across the nation became ill and three died after eating tainted spinach grown in San Benito County. Irradiation, which involves bombarding food with high-energy gamma or electron beams to disrupt the DNA of pathogens, has its supporters and critics. But the new research suggests that it may be the only way to penetrate leafy greens and kill bacteria hiding inside.
The Food Irradiation Plot: Why the USDA Wants to Sterilize Fresh Produce and Turn Live Foods into Dead Foods
Monday, April 14, 2008 by: Mike Adams |
(NaturalNews) There's a new plot underway to sterilize your food and destroy the nutritional value of fresh produce. The players in this plot are the usual suspects: The USDA (which backed the "raw" almond sterilization rules now in effect in California) and the American Chemical Society -- a pro-chemical group that represents the interests of industrial chemical manufacturers. The latest push comes from USDA researchers who conducted a study to see which method more effectively killed bacteria on leafy green vegetables like spinach.
To conduct the study, they bathed the spinach in a solution contaminated with bacteria. Then, they tried to remove the bacteria using three methods: Washing, chemical spraying and irradiation. Not surprisingly, only the irradiation killed nearly 100 percent of the bacterial colonies. That's because radiation sterilizes both the bacteria and the vegetable leaves, effectively killing the plant and destroying much of its nutritional value while it kills the bacteria.
