Food Irradiation: A way of Food Preservation an Image Article

Abstract

Copyright: © 2020 Thomson G. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Figure 1: The figure shows two sets of strawberries: one treated with irradiations (left) and the non-treated one (right). Food preservation usually involves the hindering of microbial growth and slowing the rates of fat oxidation that cause rancidity. Food preservation also includes the preventing of visual deterioration, such as the enzymatic browning of apples after they are cut during food preparation [1]. Food irradiation is a food preservation technique of exposing food to a carefully controlled amount of energy in the form of high-speed particles or rays [2]. Irradiation causes permanent damage to the DNA of pathogenic organisms thus resulting in their loss of capability to multiply and proliferate. Food irradiation is generally regarded as a cold process of preservation because it kills harmful bacteria without the use of heat and does not cause any significant rise in temperature of the food being irradiated [3]. Numerous countries have affirmed the use of irradiation as a process for preservation and increasing shelf life of a variety of foods items [3].