Geiger prawns
Question: I recently read an article about illegally irradiated food. Tests
showed that frozen supermarket prawns had been subject to this process. How is
it possible to test a prawn for previous exposure to gamma radiation?
Answer: The Food Standards Agency sponsors the development of detection tests
for irradiated food. Perhaps the best methods of detecting gamma irradiated
prawns are luminescence techniques: thermoluminescence (TL) or photostimulated
luminescence (PSL).
Many foodstuffs have small amounts of mineral grains associated with them.
Prawns, for example, have silicate material in their gut. These mineral grains
act as dosimeters. When they are…
