There is no such thing (unless they use a neutron source), I think your referring to nuclear ionizing radiation sterilization, which is completely different to pasturization. I know its semantics but the industry scientists who rely on the industry to pay their mortgage at the end of the month like to simplify the terms to dupe the public.
Actually, there is an important distinction.
Radiation sterilization kills all the microorganisms in the food. It also tends affect the flavor and texture and destroy some vitamins, etc. If the food was hermetically sealed in a container before processing and not opened, it would be shelf-stable although vitamins and other nutrition would slowly degrade over an extended time. There’s another process that does exactly the same thing with heat instead of radiation. It’s called and “canning”. If you don’t need it to be shelf stable, it’s just called “cooking”. So if that’s what you want, just cook it.
Radiation pasteurization, on the other hand, zaps it just enough to kill of the majority of the harmful pathogens, but leaves at least some of the normal spoilage bacteria alive and kicking. If it normally would need refrigeration, it still does. It still spoils and shure smells like it.
Want to try it yourself? You’ll need a 2 liter soda bottle. Fill it with some potentially unsafe pond water and set it out in the bright sun for 6 hours.* Oh my gosh – irradiated food! The only difference between the photons in the UV sun rays and the photons in the gamma rays from a chunk of cobalt 60 is the wavelength.
*http://www.sodis.ch/methode/index_EN
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