By Dr. Thomas Teklemariam
This blog post was originally published to Cultivating Science on science.gc.ca.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is always looking for ways to enhance food safety. Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) can provide a unique perspective on what's in food and is extremely useful in investigations into food safety, quality and potential fraud.
All light waves, even those that are invisible to the naked eye, are collectively referred to as EMR. EMR is a stream of energetic photons travelling at the constant speed of light in a wave-like rhythm and its energy is equivalent to the frequency of the wave. All of life's existence and many technologies we use every day rely on various forms of EMR: radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma rays, in order of increasing energy.
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