Identification of irradiated foods. Experiences from the ten years' control in Finland

Complete text of publication follows. The official control of irradiated foods has been performed since the year 1991 in Finland. The national legislation on food irradiation was similar as the new European directive allowing treatment of herbs, spices and seasonings for the purpose of decreasing the microbe content in foods. Irradiation treatment needs to be labelled. The Finnish degree allowed a five weight percent maximum amount of irradiated spice portion when labelling of radiation treatment was not needed. The official control of irradiated foods belongs to the Finnish Food Administration, who has given the practical control responsibility to the Finnish Customs Laboratory. Prescreening of food samples for identification of radiation treatment is performed at the Customs Laboratory. Those samples resulting a positive or moderate signal for irradiation will be sent to the Laboratory of Radiochemistry at the University of Helsinki for the thermoluminescence (TL) analysis. During the five first control years the prescreening was performed based on the total microbe content and the determination of fumigation residues from food samples. Since 1995 prescreening has been performed with a photostimulated luminescence (PSL) instrument. Control of irradiated foods has been applied mostly to herbs, spices and seasonings, and products containing these. Different seafood products, fresh berry, mushroom, herbal products and some animal products have been analysed during the ten years period. The amount of irradiated food imported in Finland is not high. Less than 3% of herbs and spices were found to have been irradiated. During the early years of the control irradiated seafood was found; about 5% of seafood products analysed by the TL analysis were found to have been irradiated. During the past two years only one seafood sample was irradiated. Irradiated berries or mushrooms have not been found so far