Symbol for "healthy" food, NOT!
What does this symbol look like to you? What does it make you assume? To me it looks like a logo that would represent nature or natural. A sunflower growing happily with 2 springing leaves in the sunshine! If I were to see this symbol on the food that I'm about to buy, I would "assume" that it has something to do with the food having some sort of healthy, natural treatment to it, that the company has gone out of it's way to do that others may not. I would assume that it means that it is good or better for me. And I would bet the farm that that is EXACTLY what the company that created this symbol EXPECTS and WANTS me to think. But what does this symbol mean when you see it on your food? It means this food was treated with "irradiation". Here's the definition...
IRRADIATION: Irradiation is the process by which an object is exposed to radiation. An irradiator is a device used to expose an object to radiation, notably gamma radiation, for a variety of purposes.
I'm going to allow you to figure this one out on your own by posting two readings that I found in my research. And then I am going to let you have my thoughts. Here is the first answer that I found at the top of Google when I looked to see if irradiation was harmful...
Answer #1: Food irradiation is safe, and its safety and efficacy have been endorsed by various federal agencies and intergovernmental organizations. It does not change the texture or appearance of food and does not make food radioactive. Food irradiation is also used to extend the shelf life of foods and control for insects.
And here's something that I found when I dug deeper...
The Dangers of Food Irradiation Facilities Worldwide Provided by Public Citizen Washington, DC. The United States Environmental Protection Agency recognizes that all ionizing radiation, including cobalt-60 and cesium-137, are known to cause cancer. Exposures to gamma radiation from cobalt-60 and cesium-137 result in an increased risk of cancer. External exposure is usually considered a greater threat, because stronger gamma rays are emitted. The magnitude of the health risk depends on the quantity of the radioactive isotope involved, length of exposure, distance from the source (for external exposure) and whether the cobalt-60 was ingested or inhaled. ...click for link to 5 page report...
Now after reading you have to make your own decision about how you feel regarding radiation being used to treat the food that you eat, and serve your loved ones. As far as I can remember back even as a child watching Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk, and my doctor telling me that he doesn't want to x-ray my foot too much because of the radiation, it is DEADLY to human beings when dosed too much. And I feel that eating something everyday that was treated with radiation is a pretty high dosage. However, this isn't even the main point of this blog.
The point that I'm trying to get across is that you can't trust a symbol that makes you assume and "think" it means something that it may not. When you see a symbol on your food that guides you to assume that it means something good, DON'T BELIEVE IT! Just pull that thousand dollar smart phone out and research what it means. You will be surprised at what you may learn.
Food poisoning for profit is common today because the way to boost profits for food, is to use non real food items. And non real food is not food which means it should not be eaten! The way that many food makers get away with selling this façade to the public is that the ingredients and procedures are slow killers. You don't die instantly from it, you develop cancer that takes half a lifetime to kill you when you're 40 or 50 years old. If you pay attention to the way that cancer treatment goes, there is little to no interest in how people got the cancer and how to keep others from getting it, only in treating it when someone gets it. It doesn't make sense to me just to put a band aid on your kids head when he comes in with a bruise without finding out how it happened, and taking action to assure that it doesn't happen to him or someone else again.
The greatest threat to our well-being is the food that we choose to eat. We trust all of it, ingest it in unhealthy bulks, and even serve it to the people who we love and are supposed to protect. If we are protecting the ones that we love should we be protecting them from being poisoned when they eat? I know what my decision is on that one. You have to decide for yourself.
There are a lot of people to feed on the planet and I have heard two different stories. Story #1: There isn't enough food to feed everyone so we have to start making manmade food and using possibly unhealthy procedures to spread the food that we do have. And Story #2: Farmers throw away over half of the food they grow because the quality isn't good enough to meet the standards of the consumers even though it is still healthy to be eaten. Which is true? Who truly knows. It is only up to you to decide which is going to be true if YOUR life.
-Jermaine Andre'