Radiological safety of food irradiation with high energy X-rays: theoretical expectations and experimental evidence

The radiological safety of red meat irradiated with 7.5 MeV X-rays ('bremsstrahlung) has been investigated theoretically and verified by dedicated experiments. Samples of meat and meat ash were located in a large volume of fresh meat at the position of the highest photoneutron fluence and irradiated to an X-ray dose of 15 kGy, twice the maximum dose allowed by the US FDA for meat irradiation. In order to evaluate the safety of treatment with any kind of electron accelerators, two experiments have been performed with different accelerators delivering electrons with a narrow and a broad energy spread. The measured activities and theoretical estimates are of the same order of magnitude. An evaluation of the corresponding radiation exposure from ingestion of the irradiated product has been compared to natural background radiation. The paper concludes that the risk to individuals from intake of food irradiated with X-rays from 7.5 MeV electrons, even with a broad energy spectrum, would be trivial. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd