CTR Technical Services, Inc.

2001 Newsletter

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Food Irradiation

Over and over we hear about cases of potentially deadly e. coli caused by undercooked ground beef. Sometimes the reports come from faraway places, such as the 1993 report from Seattle on the outbreak related to fast food hamburgers or the report from Minnesota just this past December.

This is all preventable. We can easily improve food safety and satisfy our desire to eat medium rare hamburgers if we buy and use meat that has been irradiated. Irradiation is nothing more than the pasteurization of solid foods.

Meat now reaches the kitchen table after safety steps are followed on the farm and in the slaughterhouse. In restaurants, similar safety steps are taken during the preparation of the cooked meal. However, none of these precautionary steps are foolproof. Only a small proportion of beef can be sampled by U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors for bacterial contamination in the slaughterhouse. Sooner or later some contaminated lots of beef are bound to slip through to the marketplace.

Food irradiation, a safety step that can occur between the slaughterhouse and the grocery store or restaurant, can kill the bacteria that remain in meats leaving the slaughterhouse. Irradiation is as effective as pasteurization is for preserving the quality and safety of milk.

A century ago this country faced repeated outbreaks of botulism, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria and scarlet fever that were transmitted in contaminated milk. Those epidemics thankfully are gone. Louis Pasteur invented the heating method named for him in the late 1800s, but it was not until 1924 that the U.S. set standards for milk pasteurization, and not until the 1940s that pasteurized milk was widely available.

We are in a similar place with food irradiation today as we were with milk pasteurization in 1930. Various foods, such as wheat flour, potatoes, pork, poultry and fresh meat, have been approved for irradiation in this country by either the USDA or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a number of years.

Nevertheless, we continue to tolerate an estimated 4 million infections each year from salmonella, campylobacter, e. coli, toxoplasmosis and listeria even though these infections can be prevented by irradiation.

There are three methods for irradiating food that have been approved and are available now -- X-rays, electron beams and gamma rays. The first two methods produce no radiation wastes and the third is similar to medical radiation therapy, which is widely accepted.

So ask both your grocer and your favorite restaurant to sell irradiated foods. You'll be glad you did.

(adapted from a February, 2001 article by Richard Hoffman, chief medical officer and state epidemiologist for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment)

Quotes

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

Albert Einstein

The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.

Woody Allen

If A Equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z; X is work, Y is play, Z is "Keep your mouth shut!"

Albert Einstein

Puzzles

1. Zebediah wants to divide the following fruit orchard with four straight fences. The fences will create eleven enclosures and each enclosure will contain one and only one apple tree. The fences can cross each other. Figure out where they go.
   
   

   

   
   
2. Mr. Foo Ling Yu, owner of the Spicy Tea Export Company, claimed that with a simple balance scale and four different iron weights, he could weigh out any amount of tea in whole pounds, from one pound to 40 pounds. What was the value of each of the four weights?
   
   

CTR Celebrates 14th Birthday

CTR Technical Services was incorporated May 14, 1987 to provide quality technical support in the nuclear field. Since then, we have done work for 27 different organizations in the areas of reactor physics calculations and measurements, reactor core flux monitoring, shielding evaluations, criticality evaluations, safety analysis reports, independent reviews, training seminars, and custom software development.

The President is Charles Rombough who has over 26 years experience in nuclear analysis and software applications. Our associate is Steve Martonak who specializes in mathematical modeling of physical systems and computer programming.

We have also formed partnerships with other organizations so that no job is too big or too small. To illustrate the depth of our expertise, see the list of clients and contract awards below. All of our clients have been pleased with the quality and value of our support. If you need help in any of these or related areas, please contact us.

1-800-524-9328

Answer to Puzzles

1. The solution is shown below.
   
   

   

   
   
2. The four iron weights were one, three, nine, and twenty-seven pounds. Sometimes weights had to be used on both sides of the scale. For example, to weigh out 16 pounds of tea, place the 3 and 9 pound weights with the tea and the 1 and 27 pound weights on the other side. The reader is left to work out how any weight of tea from 1 to 40 pounds can be balanced.

Who We Are

CTR Technical Services was incorporated on May 15, 1987 to provide technical support for the nuclear industry. Since then, we have done work for 27 organizations in the fields of reactor physics calculations and measurements, reactor core monitoring, shielding evaluations, criticality evaluations, and custom software applications.

The President is Charles Rombough who has over 26 years experience in nuclear analysis and software development. Our associate is Steve Martonak who specializes in mathematical modeling of physical systems and computer programming. We have also teamed with Dale Lancaster and Alan Wells through NuclearConsultants.com to expand our expertise into other areas.

CTR Technical Services, Inc.
950 Sugarloaf Road
Manitou Springs, CO 80829

Tele: 800 - 524-9328
Fax: 719 - 685-3806

Email: web@ctr-tech.com