Abstract
Dried vegetables, white ginseng and spices, which were exposed to gamma and electron beam irradiation, were used in a detection study by measuring their starch content and viscosity change. The samples tested showed different levels of starch content(15.64~60.86%), which was not directly proportional to the viscosity of the samples. The correlation coefficients between irradiation dose and viscosity change were lower in the samples, such as cabbage, carrot, clean vegetable(chunggyungchae), garlic, mushroom, green onion, and red pepper, while some higher coefficients were found in ginger(R2=0.9271), white ginseng (R2=0.6223) and onion (R2=0.7909). Thus, dried ginger and white ginseng were selected to be used for a detection of irradiated samples using specific parameters(threshold values). Specific parameter for the nonirradiated ginger and ginseng were 13.31 and 13.93, respectively. On the other hand, gamma and electron beam irradiated samples at 2.5 kGy, the lowest dose for a commercial purpose, showed decreased values, 11.92 and 11.15 in ginger, and moreover 4.40 and 5.10 in ginseng. It is expected that a proportional decrease in a specific parameter with the absorbed doses will be a potentially useful index for detecting whether starchy foods have been irradiated or not.
