Identification of irradiated foodstuffs using ESR microwave saturation

This study aims primarily to investigate the usage of differences in microwave (MW) saturation behaviour of food samples for identification of radiation treatment. Twenty different samples (dry plant, herbal, spice etc.) which do not have radiation specific satellite ESR signal were especially selected. It is not possible to detect radiation treatment on these samples by European standard (EN 1787, 2000). MW saturation studies were performed on all samples in the range of 0.01-160 mW. Our experimental results demonstrate that radiation identification can be possible for ten samples and cannot be possible for the other ten samples by performing the MW saturation studies.