Talk:Food irradiation

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Swimmaaj, Cilla-g, Herna327. Peer reviewers: Surajdmeharwade, All any, Chronley.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Process section and subsections unreferenced

The Process Section and subsections contain many unreferenced facts that need to be verified or attributed. I went back over 2 years in the article and found that even at this time these comments where unreferenced. Maybe the ref "anon., Gamma Irradiators for Radiation Processing, IAEA, Vienna, 2005" is supposed to cover it all, but I do not know how to verify this.

Tone of Article

This reads like a subtle advert or PR in support of food irradiation, the tone is overall highly positive and makes many positive claims about food irradiation but provides little substantiated peer reviewed evidence for these claims. This article needs to be rewritten by an independent and unbiased expert on this topic and a message to indicate this fact should appear at the head of the article until someone does. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:C409:DA00:C46:736B:3A0E:E1DD (talk) 16:19, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Many, if not most, of the sources in this article are from health agency reports, from the World Health Organization as well as national and other international regulatory bodies. Their overwhelming conclusion is that food irradiation is safe and effective, so that's the what the article reflects. Are there specific sections where the tone is inappropriate, or where claims aren't properly sourced? Red Rock Canyon (talk) 16:38, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe so, but when I was reading the article all I could do is think "wow, was this written by a food irradiation machine salesman hoping to drum up some sales?" I am totally neutral on the subject, but I agree the tone is excessively PRO, almost desperately so, and it's annoying. Even if 9 out of 10 scientists agree that something is safe, that doesn't mean you have to spend 90% of the article enumerating all the ways it's a miracle cure, all the amazing benefits it provides, why it's actually BETTER than pre-existing methods, etc. I read this and it just strikes me "man, someone is trying really hard to convince me that irradiation is a wonderful thing and we should be using it for ALL food", which contrarily makes me kind of instinctively NOT like it. I really don't like articles trying to sell me on something, and this one is pretty bad like that. It's not about "winning" and proving "your" side is "right". It's about presenting a factual neutral article that says "some people claim/believe such a thing, while other people believe claim another thing". If 9 out of 10 scientists says its safe, say that, don't take up 9/10ths of the article overwhelming the "others" with arguments in favor. While I'm at it, what does it mean by "In 2010, 18446 tonnes of fruits and vegetables were irradiated in six countries for export quarantine control; the countries follow: Mexico (56.2%), United States (31.2%), Thailand (5.18%), Vietnam (4.63%), Australia (2.69%), and India (0.05%)"? What do these percentages mean? Is this saying that there was 18,446 tonnes of fruits and veggies irradiated, 31.2% of which were from the US? It's not immediately clear. Also, it's the statistical equivalent of weasel words to use a nice, large sounding number when to use a percentage would make it look much smaller. It sounds much more impressive to say "18,446 tonnes" than to say ".02% of total world annual production", right? What does "18,000 tonnes" actually tell the reader? Not much. How does this amount related to the amount of NON irradiated fruits and vegetables sold annually? That would tell us something useful.64.223.165.28 (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Like I said before, if you think the article has issues, then you should describe the problem in terms what specific text is problematic. It's difficult to take complaints about the tone of the whole article and turn them into concrete changes. Or you could fix them yourself.

About the section on exports that you describe, I've looked at the original source, and I agree that that text could be more clear. I'll try to rewrite it to make it more apparent what the numbers refer to. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

We really want your help. To give some context to how it got this way. This article used to be in two sections. One for, and one against. I combined these sections. There are a lot of crackpots interested in this field and a majority of people follow the beliefs of these crackpots. This makes there openion relevant. This is also why there is a lot of "opponents say X is true and therefore iradiation is bad, but science says Y". If you have a way to recognize the opeinions of the opponents and explain the he counter arguments better please do so. Also much of the time Y doesn't full discount X so the opinion of X may be understated but explaining so would be original research. also about the production numbers of irradiated Foods. originally that section was talking about the numbers of irradiated Foods in reference to avoiding irradiated Foods. it was listed in pounds most likely to show how scary situation is and how you may get foods that are irradiated even if you try to avoid them Bobshmit (talk) 11:25, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Combining them was good. We don't do WP:CRITICISM sections. Per WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE we represent the scientific consensus as fact, documenting any scientific dispute in proportion to its acceptance, and then discuss political debate as a separate item. Just as we do in climate change and creationism articles. Neutrality is not an equal balance between science and anti-science scaremongering. Guy (Help!) 18:49, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• If you are opposed to food irradiation, then I am sure it does. It accurately reflects the scientific consensus. In the same way, homeopaths think our article on homeopathy is pro-big pharma, climate change deniers think our articles on climate change are pro big whateverthefuck and creationists think our articles on evolutionary biology are written by big science.

Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopaedia. If you can provide reliable, independent, mainstream sources that support your edits, please do. The organic lobby does not qualify. They have a vested interest in scaring people about irradiated food. But I did collect a complete list of reliable independtn sources that objectively establish risk from irradiation:

 

 

 

I don't think I missed any. Guy (Help!) 18:45, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Sources for Revising and Improving Current Food Irradiation Article

Food Processing Technology Principles and Practice - Book by P.J. Fellows

Irradiation for Quality Improvement, Microbial Safety and Phytosanitation of Fresh Produce - Book by Peter A. Follett and Rivka Barkai-Golan

Food Irradiation Research and Technology - Book by Xuetong Fan and Christopher H. Sommers

Irradiation of Food Commodities: Techniques, Applications, Detection, Legislation, Safety and Consumer Opinion - Book by Ioannis S. Arvanitoyannis

Journals - El Sevier, Journal of Food Quality, Trends in Food Science and Technology

Government Websites - USDA/FDA/HHS — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herna327 (talk • contribs) 05:45, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Belief stated as fact

An IP is very insistent that we represent the belief that "the process changes the nutritional content of food" as fact (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Food_irradiation&type=revision&diff=837295862&oldid=837262233). The sources for this are two pressure groups. I am doubtful that this opinion should be included at all without reliable independent sources, but representing the obviously polemical statements of pressure groups as a statement of fact seems to me to be a pretty clear violation of WP:ATT. Guy (Help!) 06:22, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Here is the citation from the industry publication that is already associated with this section.

Loaharanu, Paisan (1990). "Food irradiation: Facts or fiction?" (PDF). IAEA Bulletin (32.2): 44–48. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2014. Retrieved March 3, 2014.

I am the ip. My phones IP address is blocked right now, they seem to block whole sections on phones sometimes. There is no dispute. Food quality is changed. The change very by food type and dosage.

 17 Loaharanu, Paisan (1990). "Food irradiation: Facts or fiction?" (PDF). IAEA Bulletin (32.2): 44–48. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2014. Retrieved March 3, 2014.

If you desire to dispute this iradation industry published publication as biased against food irradiation go ahead. There are other citations available in the article to use. I do agree that the section could be reworded better by putting the second and third sentence before the first.Bobshmit (talk) 11:03, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The reliable independent sources say that the changes are generally insignificant. Any properly balanced source discussing this would of course point this out, along with the effects of decay, but we don't have any balanced sources, we have a bit of novel synthesis claiming that Big Organic claims X (source: Big Organic claiming X), but the reality based sources say it's nothing (source: a reality-based sources saying it's nothing). In the absence of any reliable independent secondary sources describing the organic lobby's opposition to irradiation, preferably in the context of motivated reasoning and their vested interests, we should not include this short paragraph at all. In the end, the significance of "Big Organic says they should not be labelled as raw" is very, very low on any objective scale.

Incidentally I agree with them, because, for example, if you were to label irradiated milk and raw milk identically, the raw milk loons would end up playing Russian roulette with safe irradiated milk being indistinguishable from potentially deadly raw milk. Guy (Help!) 13:18, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

First, it is clear that now you admit that it is not a openion but fact. So I think we are moving on to undo emphasis.

Second you should admit that you didn't read anything I wrote, called me a nut job, a sockpuppt, as well as other insults, and where wrong about all of your accusations. Not all IPs are bad. Stop using IP as an insult.

Everything you said on the top I have told you 5+ times. The paragraph does point out that the impact is minimal in the next sentence. Is the impact minimal for all usages of food irradiation, no. It is most likely minimal for the majority of products that where iradiated at the time the citation was written. The verbage in the citation is very loose and doesn't support the idea that there is never a significant impact. Also it is written by a trade publication so it is not 100% neutral and may gloss over a few things. I know there is a significant impact to vitamin (C or A I am not sure right now) when high dossages are used. So for cases of sterilization there is for sure an impact. There likely is a significant impact for leafy greens treated for fecal coloform as well as the bacteria is found in the plant and not topical. I think I remember seeing something like that in scientific litature a year after the California bean sprout and spinach outbreak 7 or so years back (the year after Jimmy John's got rid of the sprouts, God I miss that stuff). There was a push for food irradiation by the industry after.

As i have also pointed out many times. Put the second and third sentence first followed by the first. Reword a bit. Voila any concern of undo emphasis disappears. I always help people with reasonable requests. Sometimes even the partisans have points.Bobshmit (talk) 14:06, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

It's an opinion. They believe it changes the nutritional content. In fact, the changes are insignificant, and there is little to no evidence that the food you buy is measurably different, as the tests will not take into account any differential degradation in nutritional value over the shelf life of the product. Based on the published evidence, an irradiated food product is likely to be nutritionally superior to a non-irradiated one when consumed because irradiated foods are preserved.

It's also plainly tendentious to say this is why they oppose labelling of irradiated foods as fresh. The tone of the articles makes it very plain that they want all irradiated foods labelled with the scariest signage they can possibly get, because (a) they hate any industrialised food processes (b) they have a vested interest in the competition.

The paragraph starts by saying that they argue this, based solely on primary references to them arguing it. It offers nutritional degradation, as the sole stated rationale, when actually their a priori position is that irradiation should be preferably illegal and if not then prominently labelled in the scariest way possible, and the objective data shows that any degradation is almost certainly nutritionally irrelevant. It doesthen offers a rebuttal again based on primary sources. We have no secondary source discussing Big Organic's opposition to labelling irradiated food as raw.

Given your determination to include it, you clearly consider this to be pretty damn significant. Can you provide any reliable independent secondary sources that actually discuss it? At this point I call WOP:UNDUE, and the paragraph should come out until there is independent evidence of significance and context. And incidentally I came here only because of my long-standing process of removing unreliable sources, so I have no skin in the game when it comes to irradiation. I don't actually care about it at all. Guy (Help!) 15:11, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Again it seems like you are interpreting things a little differently. The changes are not insignificant, they are similar to other processes. The fact that there is some measurable degradation is a matter of fact according to the citation. There is no opinion. The statement that there is degradation is fact. I do not know if the organic Lobby is still advocating against food irradiation on these terms. If you want to remove the first sentence And reword the rest of the paragraph to give better detail I would be okay with that. There are only two things I have ever fought you with. The necessity of the second part of the paragraph "that there is some degradation of nutritional quality but it is similar or lesser than methods that we have available to us to perform the same task". Also that the degradation is not an opinion of the organic Lobby it is a matter of fact. Keep these two in mind when doing your editing and I will not revert.Bobshmit (talk) 18:56, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Of course I am interpreting, because this is drawn entirely from primary sources. If it were based on reliable independent secondary sources then we would have some indication as tot he objective significance of the changes, and some context to indicate whether this is a genuine concern or (much more likely) yet another pretext for opposing irradiation and promoting Big Organic. And that's the point: if no reliable independent secondary sources discuss this activism, it is WP:UNDUE. Really quite simple. Guy (Help!) 19:51, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The citation I keep bringing up can easily be seen as a reliable secondary sources for the relivency over the concern about degderation. This was established by consensus last time around in that other page you brought this to, not by me but by other people. Unless you claim I am sockpuppting all of them this issue is settled. This is not just my openion. Thanks again for the lovely conversation.Bobshmit (talk) 20:08, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your last edit, as it's a review study so valid for a statement of the facts. My problem was using it as a rebuttal for primary sourced material. Guy (Help!) 22:46, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

My only problem is that is exactly what I told you do too the first time we had this conversation. When you thought I was a crazy. I also told you to do this in this thread. You desperately need to learn how to read. Bobshmit (talk) 09:31, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Updating Food Irradiation Article

Hello,

As part of a school assignment, Chapman's Masters in Food Science students will be editing and improving this article. The following are suggested changes to the current article:

• Plan on cleaning up the citations and shortening the overall length of the article, yet providing readers with more in-depth information of food irradiation
• Incorporate more food products and effects throughout the article
• Improve on the three most common forms of irradiation (gamma, UV, and e- beam)
• Include a known advantages and disadvantages sections/subsections
• The "History Timeline" located at the bottom of the article will be updated
• Additional relevant pictures will be added throughout
• "Standards & regulation" section will be cleaned up and shortened, and a "Packaging" subsection will be added:
• An "Irradiation facilities and source transportation" section will be added

We appreciate comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism to continue improving the material in the article. Thank you! Herna327 (talk) 01:01, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Brenda and I, part of a Chapman Universities Master's of Food Science program, have just added the packaging section to the article and comments or concerns are appreciated. We are working with Ian Ramjohn, part of the Wiki-Ed team for this project.Swimmaaj (talk) 21:43, 22 May 2018 (UTC)AJ Silva

Are you in touch with the Wiki-Ed team, or is this just someone's idea? We're not opposed to changes but large scale rewrites of an article that has been subject to long-term problematic editing makes it hard for others to review the content changes. Guy (Help!) 06:38, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on above mentioned school assignment

The school assignment mentioned by @Herna327: (as well as the page edit history) suggests an intent to completely rewrite the article. As much of the article has been changed by consensus, a rewrite without obtaining consensus would seem contrary to Wikipedia guidelines and policy. Comments? Jim1138 (talk) 00:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Also pinging other recent editors on this talk page @Swimmaaj, JzG, Alexbrn, Red Rock Canyon, and Ne0Freedom: Jim1138 (talk) 01:15, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Being WP:BOLD is fine, but edits should be discrete and clearly described so it's possible for other editors to collaborate. Alexbrn (talk) 06:56, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Previous work does not implicitly cast an article in stone, so boldly rewriting might not be undesirable; at the same time whoever undertakes the notionally improved version should realise that, especially if the proposed draft is not put up for approval in advance, s/he should not be disappointed if the replacement promptly is reversed. JonRichfield (talk) 07:34, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• I second the above two comments. CapitalSasha ~ talk 04:45, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
• I rewrote the majority of this article after a edit War about 7 years ago. I am a horrible writer. I would prefer this article to be more polished. I find it appalling that we are discussing the method of the changes rather than the content of the changes. Wikipedia's administrators have grown far to statist in nature. That being said there are a few significant issues with the proposed revisions. The first and the most important one is that it introduces a POV Fork with the pro and con section. The second and third reason that this change needs to be rejected is that it removes the long-term and indirect impacts of irradiation content. These are things that would otherwise be put in Pro radiation and anti-radiation sections but are instead explained in a neutral manner. There are changes that are very good in the rewrite. In fact the majority of it is good. After reading the rewrite it seems that initially the students had very good direction and the teacher gave bad direction. I would like to bring in some of the changes a little at a time and will do the required leg work myself if needed.2600:1017:B018:895E:57CF:D460:1915:284F (talk) 00:23, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello everyone. My name is AJ Silva, and I have been a student in the Chapman University Master's program who has assisted in helping make this article better. I have just polished up the processing section to make it more clear on the main processes that are you used, along with adding a section about facilities and source transportation. If these changes do not seem fit, please comment. Swimmaaj (talk) 15:11, 29 May 2018 (UTC)AJ Silva

• There are some problems with the transport section. The first paragraph goes into some subsection of regulations, if you don't like this split you can completely remove the regulations section and merge it into the section that discussed the process being regulated. But it is all or nothing, one way or the other. The second goes into safety and security. The third is actually transport and therefore part of processing or treatments (how ever you want to name it). One section should encompass everything that needs to be done to irradiate food. A each sub section inside this section should detail different parts of this process, therefore ideally process and treatments should be connected. As you can probably see the packageing process should eventually go here as well.Bobshmit (talk) 20:14, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comments:

• The subject matter of this article is contentious, and people hold strong opinions on it. No-one should make extensive changes to it without discussing them on this talk page first.
• Being a student working on an assignment does not exempt an editor from following standard practices.
• An edit summary reading "Cleaned up ... Section and added ... section", when the edit in fact removed more material than it added, is likely to attract suspicion.

Maproom (talk) 08:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC) (I don't understand why the bot took three weeks to invite me to this RfC.)

"Misconceptions" section factually incorrect

"Irradiated food does not become radioactive, just as an object exposed to light does not start producing light."

This is not true for three reasons:

• There is natural radioactivity present in every food. Therefore, "does not become radioactive" is should be "does not become more radioactive beyond background radioactivity".
• Every object with non-zero absolute temperature produces light (photons). In my opinion the second part of the sentence is more confusing than helpful as it stands.
• The food does become more radioactive as a result of irradiation, but this is likely generally well below the background radiation.

"Radioactivity is the ability of a substance to emit high energy particles."

This is not true. It should be "...ability to produce radiation or particles by decay of the nucleus." The particles do not have to be high energy particles ("high energy" does not have any precise meaning either). From the relevant Wikipedia page: "Radioactive decay is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy (in terms of mass in its rest frame) by radiation, such as an alpha particle, beta particle with neutrino or only a neutrino in the case of electron capture, or a gamma ray or electron in the case of internal conversion."

"This ends shortly after the end of the exposure, much like objects stop reflecting light when the source is turned off and warm objects emit heat until they cool down but do not continue to produce their own heat."

This is untrue. See. It is perfectly possible for the radiation to create new isotopes which are active. Whether their amount is substantial is a different matter (it isn't, but the statement as it stands is false). The second part about reflection of light and heat is again just misleading in my opinion.

"It is impossible for food irradiators to induce radiation in a product."

This is quite simply untrue. See the referenced paper. Relevant section in the paper: "Four isotopes with activities exceeding 0.01 times the 40 K background and with half-lives less than 1 h, e.g. ³⁸Cl, ⁶⁹Zn, ⁸⁰Br and ¹²⁸I, would not be detectable a few hours after treatment. Two isotopes with activities exceeding 0.01 times the ⁴⁰K background and with half-lives greater than 1 h, e.g. ²⁴Na and ⁴²K, would be detectable during the first day after treatment, but would not be detectable several days later. The isotope with the longest half-life, ³²P, has an initial activity lower than 0.005 of the ⁴⁰K background in beef." Active elements are produced at low concentrations. This is directly contrary to what the section says currently.

"Irradiators emit electrons or photons and the radiation is intrinsically radiated at precisely known strengths (wavelengths for photons, and speeds for electrons)."

This is untrue. X-rays are likely produced in a spectrum of wavelengths. See the referenced paper. From the paper: "Some electron accelerators provide a broad electron energy spectrum. In order to evaluate the safety of irradiation at 7.5 MeV regardless of the electron energy beam spectrum, activation tests have been performed with two different irradiation facilities, with accelerators producing electrons with different (narrow and more wide) energy spectra."

"These radiated particles at these strengths can never be strong enough to modify the nucleus of the targeted atom in the food, regardless of how many particles hit the target material, and radioactivity can not be induced without modifying the nucleus."

This is untrue. See the referenced paper.

Overall, I don't mind the tone of the section, but the statements should be factually based. The topic of the article is on physics and it should be based on proper physics as opposed to hand waving.

Wikipedia is written with normal lay language meanings. In that context the wording is fine. We don't do things like ban the word "stationary" because "everything in the universe is moving". Likewise, a banana is not "radioactive". Alexbrn (talk) 13:07, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

While I agree that it should be a compromise between the level of details and being understandable, I think the errors are too egregious. The section can be rephrased in a much more correct way without sacrificing readability. The article is about nuclear physics in its essence, and it should be written accordingly. I think the distinction between background/natural radiation and high levels of radiation is not too hard to understand for most people. I would be keen to hear input from more editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.181.229.33 (talk) 13:19, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

As the person who wrote these sections I 100% agree, Please fix them, don't add additional tags for others to do so, and do them one by one with good citations. All but the first two bullets and the change in definition of radioactivity. Those are pedantic trash and nucleus decay is not necessary for radiation photon and electron radiation can be produced by election configuration changes.192.26.8.4 (talk) 19:03, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, did my quick pass on it.

• There is natural radioactivity present in every food. Therefore, "does not become radioactive" should be "does not become more radioactive beyond background radioactivity".
  • Pedantry, not an issue, not fixed
• Every object with non-zero absolute temperature produces light (photons).
  • Pedantry, not an issue, not fixed
• The food does become more radioactive as a result of irradiation, but this is likely generally well below the background radiation.
  • Reasonable, fixed
• "Radioactivity is the ability of a substance to emit high energy particles.": This is not true.
  • Your definition is even worse removed "high energy" and added atom as the subject
• "This ends shortly after the end of the exposure, much like objects stop reflecting light when the source is turned off and warm objects emit heat until they cool down but do not continue to produce their own heat.": This is untrue.
  • This is true when the nuculis is not modified. Made it clear that this refers to that case.
• "It is impossible for food irradiators to induce radiation in a product.": This is quite simply untrue.
  • added the word "significantly"
• "Irradiators emit electrons or photons and the radiation is intrinsically radiated at precisely known strengths (wavelengths for photons, and speeds for electrons).": This is untrue.
  • Added bit about spectrums.
• "These radiated particles at these strengths can never be strong enough to modify the nucleus of the targeted atom in the food, regardless of how many particles hit the target material, and radioactivity can not be induced without modifying the nucleus.": This is untrue.
  • This is true

Can anyone do anything themselves? 192.26.8.4 (talk) 19:47, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

SCHILL

This page is propaganda and maintained by the industry, I found out a long time ago. Irradiated food means genetically modified food. However the modifications are random.

Your chemistry accepts irradiated atoms and molecules as normal because the outer shells of

the molecules and atoms determine the chemistry of the material. On the other hand, the mutations happen in the deeper layers of the electron shells, and so you are taking in these ionized atoms for incorporation to your makeup . You will be incorporating particles with an overall electric charge on them, which is abnormal situation. It is ionizing radiation. What's the difference if you ionize your body versus ionizing your food. Recall that you are what you eat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:7491:9300:4C29:964B:EB6A:422E (talk) 14:06, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Palomaris, back again? You know you where banned. Your focus on electron shells gave you away. Modifying a lower orbit of an electron shell will propagate to the outer layers very quickly and re balance it self. It won't just sit that way. A change that results in cell death cannot be considered a mutation, as no new organism is produced from this genetic code. Also mutations are caused by chemical changes in DNA/RNA. These can be catalyzed by changes in the orbits if an atom in a DNA/RNA molecule is hit. But a lower orbit change does not equal a mutation and a lower orbit change does not equal a chemical one.192.26.8.4 (talk) 18:31, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

HELP REQUESTED! Tone of Article Revisited

To summarize a common concern this article still reads as overly promotional. Because of this, when people read it, it does not inspire confidence. To quote a previous commenter.

when I was reading the article all I could do is think "wow, was this written by a food irradiation machine salesman hoping to drum up some sales?" I am totally neutral on the subject, but I agree the tone is excessively PRO, almost desperately so, and it's annoying.

— 64.223.165.28, (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

This is my fault. So 5 or so years later I am trying to take a stab at fixing it up. To give some context to how it got this way. This article used to be in two sections. One for, and one against. I combined these sections. This is also why there is a lot of "opponents say X is true and therefore irradiation is bad, but science says Y". This is why it reads as if it is a response in a debate against the opponents of irradiation.

In my last few edits I have taken everything scientific and general about what happens to the target material when food is irradiated out of the impacts section, and moved it into the second subsection (irradiation process) taking other pages about scientific and industrial processes as a template. Now all that is left in the impacts section are things that are meant to disprove misconceptions, and an very detailed section on irradiating leafy greens. I have made 4 or so attempted edits to rework this section, but have canceled all of them. I am so desperate that I am soliciting for help on a talk page that on Wikipedia. No one ever reads these things. Please help me brainstorm ideas to fix this.192.26.8.4 (talk) 14:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I added a state of the industry section to put content that was in public perceptions into a neutral context. This involved moving misconceptions back to long term impacts. The long term impacts section and Indirect effects still needs lot of help, even more so now.192.26.8.4 (talk) 20:05, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Original research and unreliable sources

This edit was justified because there has been a substantial amount of original research (WP:OR) written into the article, with weak, unusable sources added. There are main reliable sources available, such as the FDA and CFIA, cited in the lede to affirm and make concise encyclopedic statements on food irradiation and its safety. Zefr (talk) 19:22, 5 October 2020 (UTC)