곡류, 두류, 어패류분말, 건조채소류 및 다류 등 5가지 식품유형에 대하여 전자선과 감마선 0-10 kGy 조사 후 광자극발광법(PSL)과 열발광법(TL) 분석을 통해 적용 가능성을 확인하고 두 선종의 결과를 비교·분석 하였다. PSL 분석 결과, 새우분말을 제외한 비조사 검체는 700 이하의 PCs, 음성검체로 나타났다. 전자선과 감마선 조사된 곡류, 두류 및 다류는 양성검체뿐만 아니라 중간검체, 음성검체로도 확인되어 적용 가능성이 낮았다. 특히, 두류는 감마선보다 전자선 조사된 검체가 더 명확한 판별이 가능하였 다. 전자선과 감마선 조사된 어패류분말과 건조채소류는 모두 양성검체로 나타나 조사선원에 관계없이 조사여부 확인이 가능하였다. TL 분석 결과 조사되지 않은 검체는 자연방사선에 의해 300oC 전후에서 낮은 peak를 가지는 글로우곡선이 나타났고, 대부분의 조사 검체에서는 150- 250oC의 부근에서 특유의 글로우곡선이 나타났다. 하지만, 쌀과 레몬홍차는 조사에 따른 특이적인 peak가 나타나지 않아 조사여부 확인이 어려웠다. 또한 TL 비를 산출해본 결과, 쌀과 레몬홍차를 제외한 대부분 비조사 검체는 0.0001- 0.0728, 전자선과 감마선 조사된 검체는 0.1004-4.6748로 나타나 조사여부를 확인할 수 있었다. 쌀과 레몬홍차의 TL 비는 0.1 이하로 나타나 글로우 1에서 확인한 것처럼 조사여부를 판단하기 어려웠다. 따라서 조사 선원에 따른 곡 류와 두류의 PSL 측정 결과는 전자선 조사된 검체가 더 명확한 판별이 가능하였고, TL 측정 결과는 쌀과 레몬홍차를 제외하고 모든 검체에서 조사 선원에 관계없이 조사 여부 판별이 가능하였다. 본 연구를 통해 전자선 조사에 따른 확인시험법 적용 가능성을 확인하고 선종에 따른 PSL 시험법에 대한 검지감도의 차이를 확인하였다. 연구결과는 전자선 추가 허용에 따른 데이터베이스 구축 및 조사 식품 관리체계 마련에 기초자료로 활용될 계획이다.

The exposure of food to ionizing radiation has been recognized as a safe and effective mode of food preservation in more than 55 countries. The benefits include eradication of insect pests, inactivation of food pathogens, extension of shelf-life, and improvement in food hygiene. Regulatory authorities around the world have emphasized the implementation of various national and international regulations to facilitate trade and development of consumers’confidence in purchasing irradiated foods. Therefore, the need for reliable irradiation detection methods has increased to enforce these regulations. At present, a number of promising analytical approaches have been developed and evaluated. Moreover, about 10 European Standards have been adopted as General CODEX Alimentarius methods for the detection of irradiated foodstuffs. However, most of these methods demand relatively expensive equipment and prolonged sample preparation. Therefore, simple and cost-effective approaches would be advantageous for rapid screening of foodstuffs. The suspected samples need to be analyzed further with more validated techniques to confirm the screening results. In this review, existing screening methods (i.e. physical, chemical, and biological) for the identification of irradiated foods have been outlined along with their principles, scopes and limitations.

This study examined the consumers' awareness and information need toward the irradiated foods and environmental hormones. The data were collected from 350 adults living in Daegu and Busan by the self-administered questionnaire. Frequencies and chi-square tests were conducted by SPSS. The results of the survey were as follows: (1) consumers' awareness regarding the irradiated foods and environmental hormones were low, while consumers' concerns for them were high, (2) the orders of the information needs for the irradiated foods are safety of irradiated foods, dose permitted for food irradiation, benefits of irradiated foods, kinds of permitted irradiated foods, and legislations of food irradiation, and (3) the orders of the information needs for the environmental hormones are harmfulness of environmental hormones, standards for contamination by environmental hormones, materials releasing environmental hormones, methods to prevent environmental hormones, and kinds of environmental hormones.

This study provides a national examination on youths' 'understanding' of irradiated food. The 1,200 subjects of the survey were randomly sampled from male and female students throughout the nation, between grades five and eleven. The survey was conducted toward these samples in November 2000. The number of respondents with exposure to irradiated food was so small, amounting to only 4.0 percent of the whole sample. The core concept used in this study is 'impression'. An impression is information about a specific subject, which carries significance to an individual. The results show that the higher the grade was, the more value the contents of impression contained. Furthermore, impressions concerning atomic or nuclear energy, and radioactivity increased greatly among students in middle school and above. Providing information of effects and advantages of irradiated food was focused to increase positive impressions and decrease the negative ones more greatly than providing simple factual information. Youths showed less value-centered impressions of irradiated food and more impressions centered on fragmented facts than adults. Respondents previously exposed irradiated food were shown to acquire the most of their information from the television and newspaper media. Among six information sources presented in the survey, youths pointed out 'science and technology research institutes' as the most credible. International organizations and environmental/ consumer organizations were evaluated as having relatively high credibility. Providing simple factual information of irradiated food did not seem to bring about any difference to the intention of purchasing irradiated food. On the other hand, respondents provided with effects-included information showed an increase in such intention. Our research results of the youth show a notable difference with that of the adults. Thus, programs and strategies to enhance youths' understanding should differ from those concerning adults.

The main purposes of this study are to know the contents and forms of impressions that the general public, and the consumerists and environmentalists have of irradiated food, and to know what information of irradiated food influences their impressions. Other purposes are to know what sources those impressions derive from, to know which media they have recently been exposed to and paid attention to irradiated food through, to know which sources they trust of information regarding irradiated food most greatly, and finally to suggest policies and strategies of communication in order to shed positive impressions of irradiated food on people. This study was conducted through the person-to-person interview survey toward 1,200 adults, and 150 consumerists and environmentalists in 1999. Adults are sampled nationally in South Korea. Only 8.7% of the general public have heard of irradiated food. Impressions of irradiated food that the general public mentioned most frequently are: harmful, insecure, negative, etc. The consumerists and environmentalists were found to have the most inaccurate knowledge of irradiated food. Television and newspaper were the major sources of impressions of, exposure to and focus of attention on irradiated food. Based on these results, we seem to devise methods to enhance impression of irradiated food by disseminating information of advantages and benefits that irradiation provides food with and to promote the fact that irradiation on food is totally irrelevant to being radioactive, danger of a nuclear power plant, genetically modifying food, etc.

A survey was conducted to examine the effect of food irradiation education on college students' knowledge and acceptance of food irradiation. The instrument for the knowledge and acceptance of food irradiation was administered before and after food irradiation education, to 150 students majoring in food and nutrition or food technology in the Chungnam National University. Before the education approximately 93% of the respondents did not know that radioactivity dose not remain in food after irradiation; whereas, after education half of them thought that radioactivity dose not remain in irradiated food. Knowledge about food irradiation has improved through education. The education significantly increased all the mean scores of need for food irradiation and willingness to use irradiated foods for the six food groups (p<0.01). The education significantly decreased the mean scores of concern about the irradiated food for all the six food groups (p<0.01). Although the responses to irradiated foods are, in general, negative or neutral even after education, the mean scores of acceptance of the irradiated foods have improved through education in all the six food groups (p<0.01). In conclusion, this study showed that food irradiation education may positively affect the college students' knowledge and acceptance of food irradiation, and that the development of both the appropriate detection methods to identify irradiated foods and the education programs to enlighten the college students are needed.

A survey was conducted to examine the knowledge and acceptance of food irradiation in order to provide baseline data required in the development of food irradiation education programs for college students. 150 students majoring in food and nutrition or food technology in the Chungnam National University were chosen for a survey. The results are as follows. First, college students' knowledge about food irradiation is scanty. Knowledge assessment showed that 56% of the participants had previously heard of food irradiation. 68% of the respondents thought that radioactivity remains in food after irradiation and 25.3% of them were not sure whether radioactivity remains in food after irradiation or not. Only half of the respondents thought that nutrient loss due to irradiation is equal to or lower than that due to cooking or freezing. Second, approximately 56% of the respondents showed that food irradiation is somewhat or strongly needed for meat or fish; whereas, over 60% of them showed that food irradiation is not needed for grain, vegetable and fruit. Almost 40% of the respondents were seriously concerned about irradiation of vegetables and fruits; whereas, they showed less concern about spice irradiation. More than half of the respondents were not willing to use irradiated food in all the six food groups. Third, the correlation analysis showed that the need of food irradiation is negatively correlated with concerning about the irradiated fish and fruits, but positively correlated with willingness to use irradiated food in all the five food groups, except in spices. Concern about the irradiated food is negatively correlated with willingness to use irradiated food from all the six food groups. Fourth, almost all the respondents (over 90%) agreed that the irradiated food labeling is required as well as the development of proper methods to identify irradiated foods.

식품의 살균법은 가열법, 저온살균법, 훈증법 그리고 방사선 조사법과 같은 다양한 방법으로 살균을 수행하고 있다. 방사선 조사식품은 다른 타 살균법에 비해 에너지 소요량이 적으면서 강력한 투과력으로 연속적인 처리 공정이 가능하다는 장점뿐만 아니라 살균에만 국한하지 않고 살충 및 발아억제 그리고 숙도를 조절함으로써 안전성에 관한 연구가 많이 이루어지고 있으나, 국내에선 연구된 보고 사례가 많지 않다. 본 연구에서는 방사선 조사식품에 대한 인식을 파악하기 위해 설문지를 통해 연구를 수행하였다. 연구대상자는 가정에서 식생활을 책임지고 있는 학부모를 대상으로 하였다. 그 결과 방사선조사식품에 대한 인식은 평균 2.73점으로 낮게 나타났으며, 인식개선을 위한 적극적인 홍보와 교육이 필요할 것으로 사료된다.

본 연구는 충남 S시 방사선학과, 식품생물학과 1, 2, 3학년에 재학 중인 208명(남자 93명, 여자 115명) 을 대상으로 방사선 식품조사에 대한 인지도 및 수용도를 설문지 이용하여 분석한 결과는 다음과 같다. 1. 방사선 식품조사에 대해 알고 있다고 답변한 대상자는 전체 208명 중 81명(38.9%)으로 나타났으며, 학과, 학년별 분포에서는 방사선학과의 3학년 32명(15.4%)이 가장 많이 알고 있었고, 식품생물공학과 학 생들은 대부분 모르는 것으로 나타났다. 2. 방사선 조사식품에 대해 가장 신뢰하는 기관이나 단체에서 식품의 안정성을 과학적으로 입증한다 면 이를 “전적으로 구입하겠다”고 답변한 대상자는 전체 208명 중 방사선학과 50명(24%), 식품생물공학 과 12명(5.77%) 총 62명(29.8%)으로 나타났으며, 132명(63.5%)은 “모르겠다”라고 답하였는데 이는 방사 선 조사식품에 대해 정확한 정보부족으로 인식하지 못하는 것으로 사료된다. 방사선 조사식품의 수용도 와 성별과 학년별간의 유의성은 없는 것으로 나타났다. 3. 최근 정부에서는 학교급식 식중독사고에 대처하기 위하여 급식식품에 방사선 조사를 하겠다고 하 는 방침에 학생들의 생각을 분석한 것으로 학교급식의 식중독 사고 방지를 위하여 급식식품에 방사선 을 조사한다는 정부 방침에 총 204명 중 “매우 필요하다”고 답한 응답자는 18명(8.8%), “대체로 필요하 다”는 87명(42.6%)으로 총 105명(51.5%)이 긍정적으로 생각하고 있는 것으로 나타났으며, “모르겠다”고 답한 응답자는 87명(42.6%), “필요하지 않다”는 12명(5.9%)으로 총 99명(48.5%)이 부정적으로 생각하는 것으로 나타났고, 방사선 조사 식품의 필요성과 정부의 대처방안에 대한 일원 다변량 분산분석 결과 유 의성이 있는 것으로 나타났다.