Trends in radiopreservation of foods

Radiopreservation of food is a technological process which is ensuring quality and durability of food. Food materials are irradiated by ionising radiation to reduce biological activity in foodstuffs. From this point of view, application of food irradiation is equivalent process to the other technological procedures ensuring good quality of food such as sterilisation by low or high temperature and chemicals factors. Although the sterilisation by ionising radiation has been limited by controversial effects in general, irradiated technologies of more than 40 products were accepted in several countries. Radiopreservation of food is spread mainly in the U.S.A. where ionizing radiation is even using for enhancement of several visual factors of food for instance the color. The countries of European Union accepted similar standards for radiopreservation of food and ingredients. They determined the kind of food materials, the convenient doses of irradiation and other conditions at ionizing radiation using for food preservation. Number of food is limited by toxicological aspects and unknown behaviour of radiation within food material (e.g. secondary radiation). For this reason, it is necessary to study the effects of food irradiation and find out its mediate influence on human organism. (authors)