Logical Reasoning

PT111 · S1 · Q6 Proponent: Irradiation of food by gamma

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Proponent: Irradiation of food by gamma rays would keep it from spoiling before it reaches the consumer in food stores.

Proponent's Conclusion (so)

There is no reason to reject irradiation on the grounds of nutrition or safety.

Proponent's Evidence

Irradiation kills off Salmonella. And the process of irradiating food leaves no radiation behind.

It kills off some of the vitamin content, but it's comparable to what vitamin losses occur in cooking.

Evaluate

Even though the Opponent does have their own paragraph, this question stem sounds more like we're just supposed to critique the reasoning used in the Proponent's paragraph. And even though the Proponent's conclusion is a two-pronged claim about nutrition and safety, the question stem only cares about the nutrition part.

Given what they've told us, is it possible for us to argue that irradiation should be rejected on the grounds of nutrition?

We could argue that irradiating a food like broccoli could harm its nutritional value if someone were otherwise planning to eat broccoli raw. The author is comparing irradiated food to cooked food and saying they'd have similar vitamin content, but raw food might still beat out cooked food.

It's also possible that irradiated + cooked has less vitamin content then just-cooked. Maybe irradiating the food knocks out 30% of vitamins, and then cooking irradiated food would knock out yet another 30% of vitamins.

Goal

Let's look for an answer that would give us a way to object to the proponent and argue that,

Which one of the following could the opponent properly cite as indicating a flaw in the proponent's reasoning concerning vitamin losses?

After irradiation, food might still
No Impact: might spoil
This is very weakly worded ('might'), so it's unlikely to have much impact as an objection. When food spoils, we don't eat it, and all food (whether irradiated or not) is going to eventually spoil. So it's not clear how we'd use this to say that irradiating food could be a bad idea for nutrition's sake.
7% picked this
Correct
Irradiated food would still need
Why this is right
This is allowing us to make an objection about the nutritional impact of irradiating food. Let's say that a piece of broccoli has 100 points of vitamin content in it, but when you cook the broccoli, you usually remove 30 points of that. The author is saying that irradiating food also removes 30 points of vitamin content, so what's the big deal? We can object that some people eat raw broccoli and get all 100 vitamin points. So if we go irradiating all the broccoli, then raw broccoli will only have 70 points. And, we can object that cooking irradiated food might further deplete an item of vitamin concent. Irradiating it brought it from 100 to 70. Then cooking that irradiated food brings it from 70 to 40. So since irradiated raw food would be worse nutritionally than raw food that isn't irradiated, and irradiated cooked food would be worse than cooked food that isn't irradiated, then we do have reason to reject irradiation on the grounds of nutrition.
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
74% picked this
Vitamin loss is a separate
No Impact
The author clearly knows that vitamin loss is a separate issue. She talks about both of them, but never blurs the line between them. Also, this answer doesn't give us any way to say that there IS a nutritional reason why we shouldn't irradiate food.
13% picked this
Vitamins can be ingested in
No Impact: pills
This has nothing to do with whether irradiating food would make it less nutritional than if we hadn't irradiated that food. This is talking about something else altogether, which is taking vitamin pills.
1% picked this
That food does not spoil
No Impact
The part of irradiating food that relates to spoilage doesn't have anything to do with nutrition. Spoilage is just talking about how long a food is available to eat, not how much nutritional value is in the food should you choose to eat it (in its pre-spoiled state).
5% picked this

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