In response to last year’s outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella, and ammonia in beef, the American Meat Institute (AMI) is urging the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to approve slaughterhouse irradiation as the solution. The AMI has been requesting irradiation approval for years from the USDA, insisting that the process would stop outbreaks by eliminating contamination at the source.

Consumer confidence in the safety of commercial food has been dwindling as outbreak after outbreak dominates national headlines. Particularly in meat, there have been seemingly countless recalls of contaminated, commercially raised beef, leading to an outcry for something to be done.

Unfortunately, rather than address the inherent failures of industrial food production that have led to widespread contamination in the first place, the USDA and others are leaning towards the idea of nuking the entire food supply instead.

Irradiating food not only changes its composition and makes it unsafe and unfit for human consumption, but the costs associated with implementing an irradiation system would be incredibly expensive, especially for smaller producers.

Ironically, the large producers responsible for the vast majority of outbreaks would have the easiest time complying with irradiation mandates while smaller producers who generally provide the cleanest meat would bear an incredible expense that could put them out of business.

Regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the USDA habitually fail to address the source of problems like food contamination and, instead, respond with illogical propositions that make the problem worse. Much like pharmaceutical drugs, their methods fail to provide a remedy and only compound the problems by trying to treat their symptoms.