PASCAGOULA – It is not surprising to see an X-ray machine at a physician’s or dentist’s office, but research at Mississippi State University may help make them commonplace at seafood processing facilities and commercial produce operations.
Barakat Mahmoud, an assistant professor of food safety and microbiology with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and spokesman for the Institute of Food Technologists, is researching X-ray machines as a way to decontaminate food products. He conducts his work at MSU’s Experimental Seafood Processing Laboratory in Pascagoula.
His research shows X-ray doses can kill dangerous bacteria that make people sick, such as salmonella, E. coli, vibrio, shigella and listeria. The process simply removes harmful bacteria and does not alter the food product in any other way. In 1963, the Food and Drug Administration deemed the irradiation of food to be a safe practice.
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