Recently an acquaintance and I got sidetracked to a strange tangent:
Is irradiated meat and poultry kosher?
More and more foods are being made bug-free through irradiation.
In the non-kosher poultry processors, birds are defeathered by scalding. Not the way Savta did it, picking off feather by feather. Kosher poultry processors are forbidden to scald the birds since the rabbis consider scalding - even surface scalding - to be cooking, and that is prohibited until the fowl has been kashered (soaked and salted).
That prohibition is one of the many reasons the price of kosher fowl is foul; it is labor intensive. (Likewise glatt and Bet Yosef meats; labor intensive.)
I am not a scientist and all I know about irradiation is how to spell the word, and I have to check each time to be sure. I did look on the WWW - I use Dogpile as my search engine of choice, with Google as a backup - for "irradiation"
According to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (May 2000), "Food irradiation is a process in which products are exposed to radiant energy including gamma rays, electron beams, and x-rays in amounts approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
"Irradiation is only one of many processes that can be used to prevent food borne illness. It is not a substitute for good manufacturing practices. Establishments that use irradiation must meet the same sanitation and processing standards required by all meat and poultry plants."
"At a food irradiation plant that uses gamma radiation, food is irradiated in an area that is surrounded by concrete walls at least 6-feet thick which keep any rays from escaping. The radiation source, usually Cobalt 60, is held in a resting position in a pool of water. A conveyor system transports the meat or poultry product to the area. The radiation source is then raised out of the water and the food is exposed for a defined period of time. When the source is raised, lights and alarms are sounded to make people aware that the product is being irradiated. Once the food is irradiated, the source automatically returns to the resting position and the food leaves the area for further processing.
"If a machine source (for example, electron accelerator) is used, electricity to the machine is switched on and a beam of electrons passes across the meat or poultry."
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains that there currently are three radiation options: gamma rays, electron beams, and x-rays.
Under a heading How does irradiation affect foods?, the CDC writes that "The foods are not changed in nutritional value and they are not made dangerous as a result of the irradiation. The high energy ray is absorbed as it passes through food, and gives up its energy. The food is slightly warmed. My emphasis. Some treated foods may taste slightly different, just as pasteurized milk tastes slightly different from unpasteurized milk. If the food still has living cells, (such as seeds, or shellfish, or potatoes) they will be damaged or killed just as microbes are. This can be a useful effect. For example, it can be used to prolong the shelf life of potatoes by keeping them from sprouting. The energy can induce a few other changes. At levels approved for use on foods, levels of the vitamin thiamine are slightly reduced. This reduction is not enough to result in vitamin deficiency. There are no other significant changes in the amino acid, fatty acid, or vitamin content of food. In fact, the changes induced by irradiation are so minimal that it is not easy to determine whether or not a food has been irradiated."
For all that, neither the FDA nor the CDC answered our question, although the CDC did allow that during the irradiation process "the food is slightly warmed." How slightly may depend on the radiation dosage. The CDC notes that "At higher doses, irradiation could be used on a variety of different foods to eliminate parasites and bacteria that cause food borne disease. Many foods can be irradiated effectively, including meat, poultry, grains, and many seafoods, fruits and vegetables. It is likely to have greatest application for raw foods of animal origin that are made by mixing materials from many animals together, such as ground meat or sausage."
Interestingly, the CDC cautions that "Irradiated foods need to be stored, handled and cooked in the same way as unirradiated foods. They could still become contaminated with germs during processing after irradiation, if the rules of basic food safety are not followed. Because the irradiated foods have fewer microbes of all sorts, including those that cause spoilage, they may have a longer shelf life before spoiling."
It turns out there are two (2) questions to consider.
Question #1: What constitutes cooking: how hot must the stove (top or oven) be for the heat to be at a "cooking" level.
I asked, via Web forms,
- Aish
- Ask the Rabbi (asktherabbi.org)
- Chabad
Question 2: On Sunday, October 20, 2013, I queried the following kashrut agencies (alphabetically) if irradiation was allowed for meat and poultry:
Question 1: How hot?
October 20, 2013 Rabbi Reuven Lauffer of asktherabbi.org: I do not really know enough about the subject to give you a definitive answer. I would suggest that you contact one of the large Kashrut agencies to speak with the experts as they are at the vanguard of all the technical advancements and their impact on the world of Kashrut.
October 22, 2013 Rabbi P. Waldman, Aish.com: The temperature that constitutes cooking for many Halachot is 45 degrees centigrade – (source: “Shmirat Shabbat” by R’ Y. Neuwirth, I 1:1 [3]). 45 o C is roughly 113 o F.
Question 2: Is irradiation allowed?
October 21, 2013: Rabbi Shmuel Heinemann, Kashrus Administrator of Star-K Kosher Certification: Irradiation does not cook the food and therefore does not pose any problem as far as bishul akum is concerned. The issue with scalding chickens is that the scalding is done before the salting and the concern is that the blood will get absorbed (due to the heat) in the meat and therefore not come out in the salting. Any irradiation that would be done on kosher chicken and meat would be done after the salting and would therefore not be an issue.
October 22, 2013 Dina Fraenkel, OK Kosher: I spoke to one of the rabbis in our office and he has informed me that “irradiation” is not a cooking process.
October 22, 2013 Rabbi P. Waldman, Aish.com: We generally refrain from eating meat that was processed through irradiation, smoking, etc., that was done before Kashering the meat – (source: “Sridei Aish” by R’ Y. Weinberg, II 13).
October 22, 2013 Unsigned from MK (Canada): Cooking in Halacha is only when food is processed by heat. This includes microwave ovens because although there is no external heat source nevertheless the food is heated by the electromagnetic waves and is ultimately 'cooked' by heat. Therefore the answer to the question if irradiation is considered 'cooking', depends if the process heats the food or not. Can you please advise us regarding the process and if it uses heat, in order that we can respond accordingly.
October 22, 2013 Dovid Cohen of cRC only noted that It is acceptable to irradiate kosher meat.
October 22, 2013 OU's The Web(be) Rebbe wrote that The OU only permits meat to be irradiated after melicha.
For general kashrut questions, the BEST source is Kashrut.com at http://www.kashrut.com .
