The major components of food matrices are, apart from water, carbohydrates,
proteins, and lipids, while minor components include vitamins
and minerals, which also possess crucial roles in human nutrition and are of
major interest. The effects of radiation on these components have been
studied for many years and are still explored nowadays in a wide range of
foodstuff as the ionizing effects of radiation on food are highly dependent on
the composition of the matrix and cannot be assumed to be similar to those
observed in each individual component irradiated separately.1–3
The fact is that this technique induces some primary effects in food
matrices that occur particularly due to the presence of water molecules via
ionization and excitation, which exponentially increase by the secondary
action of the free radicals formed in this phase. These chemically highly
reactive species have the capacity of interacting with each other and/or with
other food components, leading to the formation of new molecules that are
not present in non-irradiated food. Some of these harmful compounds can
include, among many others, 2-alkylcyclobutanones (2-ACBs), which are
known unique radiolytic products. Irradiation can also have other effects in
food, it can modify and/or improve its major chemical components and often enhance the extractability of specific molecules, improving their
bioactivity.2,4,5
Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that food processing conventional
methods such as heating, drying, and cooking may cause higher
nutritional losses than irradiation techniques, which have been proven to
afford virtually unaltered products.6
In this chapter, recent studies concerning the impact of irradiation processing
are presented and discussed, as well as the principal factors affecting
food irradiation chemistry.
