Fish Products and Byproducts Technology

Unit 1 - Principles of Fish Preservation

1.5.9.Irradiation
Food irradiation is the process for the treatment of food products to enhance their shelf life and to improve microbial safety. Electromagnetic radiations, namely gamma, and X-rays having short wavelength (< 300 µm) and higher energy than visible light can significantly penetrate the material including foods causing ionization of atoms and molecules by removing electrons from their outer shell. The inactivation of living cells (microbial cells) by irradiation is essentially due to scission of single or double strands of DNA, which is essentially caused by the OH radical formed by radiolysis of water. In addition to DNA damage, ionizing radiation has also been shown to cause damage to the membrane and other structures causing sub-lethal injury.