Q6 - Proponent: Irradiation of food

[sumukh09]

For this question, you would save some invaluable time by reading the question stem prior to reading the stim. The question concerns ONLY the argument of the proponent and has nothing to do with what the opponent says as a response.

We're looking for an answer choice that the opponent could use to to indicate a flaw in the reasoning of the proponent. Essentially, the proponent is saying that because irradiation leaves no radiation behind and vitamin losses are comparable to those that would occur by cooking, there is no reason to reject irradiation on grounds of safety or nutrition.

The correct answer should address the gap in the argument made by the proponent.

B) does this. What if irradiated food needed to be cooked? Wouldn't that further decrease the amount of vitamins in the food in question? Vitamins have already been lost by irradiation and we know that cooking also reduces the vitamins in the food, so if we need to cook the irradiated food wouldn't that just compound the loss of vitamins that already occurred? This is the flaw because the proponent says we should reject irradiation on grounds of safety and nutrition. But clearly, we shouldn't reject on grounds of nutrition because vitamin loss is greater than would be if food was not irradiated.

[maryadkins]

Nice job!

Just to touch on the wrong answers:

(A) is irrelevant. We're not talking about what might happen if you store poorly.

(C) doesn't matter--the argument already considers them separate issues ("nutrition or safety")

(D) So?

(E) Again... so? We're just worried about whether there's a safety or nutrition issue, here.

[tzyc]

I'm still not sure about (B)...
"Irradiated food would still need cooking"→if cooked, it would lose nutrition further...I understand this part, so that's why there is flaw in proponent's argument. But,
"or, if eaten raw, it would not have the vitamin advantage of raw food"...→I do not understand this part...if eaten raw food, I think we can still absorb nutritions, can't we??

[maryadkins]

The proponent tells us that the irradiation is going to cause vitamin loss comparable to what happens when you cook the food. So even if it's raw, it has less vitamin value than raw food that has not been irradiated--because irradiation, like cooking, causes vitamin loss. Even if we can still absorb vitamins, we've still lost the "advantage" of eating raw food that had not been irradiated.

Does that help explain?

[WaltGrace1983]

Just to reiterate, here was my line of thinking when I came to (B). I too was turned off by the "raw food" bit.

We know vitamin losses occur in cooking - shown when the author says "vitamin losses [that occur in irradiation] are comparable to those that occur in cooking").

We also know that irradiation causes some vitamin losses too as the statement shows above.

So if irradiation causes vitamin losses and cooking causes vitamin losses, then cooking irradiated food would be less nutritionally beneficial than cooking non-irradiated food. Therefore, the part about having "no reason to reject irradiation on the grounds of nutrition" is bogus!

Now we get to the part about "if eaten raw, it would not have the vitamin advantage of raw food."

Now we have the same thing: we are comparing irradiated food and non-irradiated food. From this statement, we see clearly that irradiated food "would not have the vitamin advantage" of regular raw food. In other words raw, non-irradiated, food has more vitamins.

So irradiated food that is COOKED has less vitamins and irradiated food that is RAW has less vitamins. Ultimately, irradiated food has less vitamins than raw food. If the opponent states, "well, irradiated food still needs cooking," he would DESTROY the proponent's argument that "there is no reason to reject irradiation on the grounds of nutrition."

Boom!