How many big food recalls can your think of from the past couple of years off the top of your head? Ground beef. Ground turkey. Spinach. Eggs. Peanut butter. Cookie dough. Black pepper. Those are the few that came to my mind, but there have been dozens more and they’re almost always because bacteria has been detected in the foods and made people ill.

There is a lot of talk about using food irradiation to kill bacteria that can contaminate food and cause illness and death. The Environmental Protection Agency says that irradiation is similar to pasteurization but while pasteurization uses heat to kill bacteria, irradiation uses radiation.

It seems to me that the end result of pasteurization and irradiation might be similar, but the methods are not. Radiation is not natural and the long-term effects of eating a steady diet of irradiated foods are not known. I am leery of the process.

I am not leery about natural coriander oil, though. A new study found the oil from the seeds of a coriander plant is a natural method of fighting bacteria.