The Nutritional Value of a Synthetic Diet Sterilized by Gamma Rays, as Measured by Reproduction and Life Span of Rats

Abstract

The Officeof the Surgeon General of U. S. Army has carried out an investigation to determine the nutritional properties of foods which have been sterilized by gamma radiation from fis sion products. This laboratory has participated in this over all program on radiation preservation of foods since Septem ber 1954. One study in the program was to determine the nutritional value of an irradiated synthetic diet for repro duction and its effect on longevity in rats. The results of this study are described in this report. EXPERIMENTAL Four generations of rats, both in the reproduction and longevity studies, received a synthetic diet which had been irradiated with 2.79 X IO6rad of gamma rays. The same num ber of animals received the non-irradiated diet as a control. The composition of the diet is given in table 1. The diet was mixed in the laboratory, sealed in no. 2 plain tin cans, stored overnight at —4°F,packed in canvas packers with dry ice and shipped to the Materials Testing Reactor at Idaho Falls, Idaho. After the diet had come to ambient temperature half of each shipment was irradiated. This portion was designated the irradiated diet. The other half was not irradiated and it was used as the control diet. The irradiated and control diets 353