Irradiation of Fresh Produce

I am a huge fan of Bill Marler. I get a lot of food safety information from his blog and related websites.  Bill sees people suffering the worst possible effects of having eaten poisonous foods.  So if I disagree with something Bill says, don't ever read any disrespect into that disagreement.

From MarlerBlog:

Less irradiation can kill more bugs on leafy greens
Posted by Bill Marler on December 07, 2010

ScienceDaily reports in “Killing Salmonella and E. Coli on Fresh Produce With Half the Normal Food-Irradiation Levels” that a team of Texas A&M researchers has developed a way to cut by as much as half the amount of irradiation needed to kill 99.999 percent of salmonella, E. coli and other pathogens on fresh produce. . . .

(Isn't this blogging stuff cool? Science Daily publishes an article based on a press release from Texas A&M University. Bill Marler blogs about the Science Daily article. And I blog about Bill Marler blogging about the Science Daily article.)

I suppose it's a relief that it doesn't take much radiation to kill salmonella and e. coli on produce.  But I think this is the wrong direction.  These are pathogens that originate in animals.  They shouldn't be on the produce in the first place.  It is not OK that they are there.  We've been seeing more of this kind of contamination of produce lately.  Is it because our operations are so big we can't keep track of where the animals are? Are harvesting practices so out of control that employees don't clean their hands? Where are these poop bacteria coming from? It's simply NOT a given that food must be contaminated.  We're doing something wrong.

So we keep turning to more and more technology to solve problems that are created by technology in the first place.