The Invisible Danger: Why You Should Care About Food Irradiation

In a world where food safety and shelf life are increasingly prioritised over nutrient integrity, there’s a quiet industrial practice that rarely gets talked about — and almost never appears on product labels: irradiation.

Used on everything from herbs and spices to grains and dried fruits, irradiation may sound high-tech and reassuring. It uses gamma rays, electron beams, or X-rays to kill bacteria, delay ripening, and extend shelf life.

But while it’s effective in neutralising microbes, it comes at a cost. And it’s a cost we’re not willing to pass on to our customers.

The Problem With Irradiation

Irradiation may reduce microbial contamination, but it also changes the food in ways that can’t be undone.

• Nutrient Loss: Key vitamins like A, B1, C and E are degraded or destroyed by radiation.
  
  
• Structural Damage: Radiation alters enzymes and antioxidants, reducing the food’s natural healing power.
  
  
• Radiolytic Byproducts: These are new chemical compounds formed during irradiation — not all of them fully studied, and none of them naturally occurring.
  
  
• Lack of Transparency: In many countries, irradiated ingredients don’t require prominent labelling — especially when used as part of a blend. Consumers are often unaware their “natural” food has been exposed to radiation.
  

For a treatment designed to make food safer, that’s a lot of compromise.

What We Do Instead: Freeze Drying

Rather than sterilising our ingredients, we preserve them — gently and respectfully.

Freeze drying is a low-temperature, vacuum-based method that removes moisture from food without the use of heat or radiation. It’s used in high-performance fields like space nutrition and clinical research — and it’s perfect for superfoods and medicinal plants.

Here’s what makes freeze drying better:

• Up to 90–95% nutrient retention, including fragile vitamins and enzymes
  
  
• No chemical exposure, no preservatives, no radiation
  
  
• Preserves the full integrity of the plant — colour, aroma, flavour, and potency
  
  
• Stops bacterial growth naturally by removing moisture (without killing the food itself)
  
  

We also test every batch for microbial safety post-freeze-drying. It’s a more rigorous, more expensive process — but it's the only one we trust with your health.

Certified Organic = Never Irradiated

You might be surprised to learn that certified organic standards globally prohibit irradiation — entirely.

In Australia (under ACO), the US (USDA Organic), the EU, and many other regions, if a product is certified organic, it cannot be irradiated at any stage — not during growth, storage, processing, or packaging.

That’s why choosing certified organic isn’t just about avoiding pesticides — it’s also a safeguard against hidden industrial processing.

So when we say our ingredients are freeze dried and sourced from organic-certified or organic-compliant farms, it’s not just about farming. It’s about trust, integrity, and the right to know what’s in your food — and what’s been done to it.