Statement summarising the Conclusions and Recommendations from the Opinions on the Safety of Irradiation of Food adopted by the BIOHAZ and CEF Panels

Research into Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) for Ensuring the Effect of 1 MeV-Accelerated Electrons on Volatile Organic Compounds in Turkey Meat

One of the most important tasks in the food industry is the search for alternative biochemical markers of radiation treatment in dietary, chilled meat products such as chicken and turkey. Major organic volatile chemicals found in meat products can be precisely identified using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. In the response to the needs of the food industry, our research team conducted a series of experiments involving the irradiation of chilled poultry meat using an electron accelerator. The experiments showed that the concentration of pure volatile organic compounds in saline solution dropped exponentially with an increase in the irradiation dose, which proves that these chemicals decomposed when exposed to ionizing radiation. However, when turkey meat was exposed to an electron beam with doses up to 1 kGy, the concentration of alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones peaked, only to decrease with an increase in the irradiation dose up to 2 kGy, and then went up slightly when the irradiation dose was within the range from 2 kGy to 10 kGy. To determine the reason behind the nonlinear dependencies of organic compound concentrations in turkey meat on the irradiation dose, we developed a mathematical model that acknowledges the presence of two opposing processes, those of decomposition and accumulation of organic compounds as a result of the decomposition of other compounds that can be found in turkey meat.

Assessment of microbiological contamination in saengshik products from the Korean market and identification of the irradiation status

This study investigated the prevalence of microbiological contamination in commercial Saengshik products (samples SP-1 to SP-12) from the Korean market, and identified their irradiation status. SP-2, SP-8, and SP-12 showed less than 3.66 and 1.10 log colony forming units (CFU)/g in total plate and coliforms counts, respectively, while the remaining samples showed more than 4.70 and 2.35 log CFU/g, respectively. Four samples were positive on some of foodborne pathogenic bacteria (Clostridium perfringens, Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Bacillus cereus). SP-2, SP-8, and SP-12 contained no pathogenic bacteria and were suspected to have been irradiated. They were confirmed as positive using photostimulated luminescence (PSL) analysis. PSL positive results on samples SP-2, SP-8 and SP-12 were finally confirmed by the authentic thermoluminescence (TL) analysis on the basis of TL glow curve shape, intensity, temperature range of TL peak maxima and TL ratio (TL₁/TL₂).