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A comment on Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019). Parent comment

Re:Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases... by scythe on Thursday August 18, 2022 @11:23AM (#32510927)
To irradiate food, you need to keep the photon energy below 1.022 MeV, or you get residual radioactivity due to pair production.
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Re:Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases... by DoctorOetker on Friday August 19, 2022 @12:54AM (#32517663)
with pair production I assume you mean electron positron pairs?

how is that harmful in food?

the lifetime of a positron wouldn't be very long, or is the concern free radicals?

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Re:Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases... by DoctorOetker on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:55AM (#32517890)
as I thought pair production is irrelevant in food irradiation

the tolerable limits in particle energies and doses are very high for truly tiny increases in induced radioactivity. its really marginal as long as the very conservative limits are respected.

see for example:

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/te_1287_prn.p...

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Re:Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases... by scythe on Sunday August 21, 2022 @02:33PM (#32543057)
Sounds good to me. From a medical standpoint, I'm aware that irradiated food is perfectly safe. It's the political utility of saying "no residual radioactivity" that I was focused on. But I guess positrons probably aren't much different from electrons in causing that.
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