Short-Term Rat Feeding Studies with Gamma-Irradiated Food Products

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Abstract
Fourteen foods irradiated with three or 6 million rep and subsequently stored in the frozen state have been fed ad libitum to rats for 8 to 12 weeks as 35% of the dry weight of the diet. The remaining 65% of the diet was a non-irradiated nutritionally adequate semi-synthetic ration. Comparable nonirradiated foods were used as controls. Covariance analysis of the weight gains, caloric consumption, and initial weights was performed to determine low-levels of toxic products in the irradiated foods. Thirteen foods (bacon, snap beans, beef, beets, bread, cereal bar, corn, haddock, fresh ham, powdered milk, spinach, strawberries and turkey) have been found to be non-toxic by this technique. A suggestion of low level toxicity of 6 × 106 rep irradiated peaches has been obtained; 3 × 106 rep irradiated peaches have been shown to be non-toxic. The interpretation of these results has been discussed.