# What's the word on food contamination?



## Rube

I haven't been paying much attention to the news these past weeks but every once in a while I'll look up at the TV and they'll be talking about contamination south of Tokyo always with the "not dangerous at these levels" tagline. 

So besides the obvious, like washing all our greens and staying away from spinich what's the word?


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## Rube

Was watching some news last night about it and they were testing the various places on tea leafs south of Tokyo and the radiation is being absorbed through the leafs and not the roots so it's apparent that it's from the air. They explained that more or less there are radiation clouds and when it rains there are subsequent peaks in radiation on the ground. Till they get fukushima under control this is what we can expect for the foreseeable future it seems. 

The first crop of tea is destoyed for areas that are effected and they have to wait to see if they'll be able to get the second harvest. 

Some crops like spinach are more susceptible to radiation than others it seems. Something about the kind of minerals it uptakes being similar in structure or some jive but more or less anything that is outside will have radiation on it after rain fall. Not enough to be harmful they say. 

This is from the government

"Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, said that spinach and milk were the only products found to have abnormally high radiation levels. The level of radioactivity found in the spinach would, if consumed for a year, equal the radiation received in a single CAT scan, he said, while that detected in milk would amount to just a fraction of a CAT scan.

“These levels do not pose an immediate threat to your health,” Mr. Edano said. “Please stay calm.” 

Personally I'm not too worried but I'm going to cut back on my spinach intake.


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## Rube

callcenter4sale said:


> Canned goods


That is one way of dealing with it, or frozen foods. A few years back frozen food got a bad name because of the gyoza poisoning from China but I won't be a bit surprised if people start buying frozen veggies with a vengence.


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## larabell

Rube said:


> They explained that more or less there are radiation clouds and when it rains there are subsequent peaks in radiation on the ground.


What's the source on that? There are a number of web sites where live data is being posted, from both institutions and hobbyists, and I've been watching them on a regular basis. There was a spike right around the time of the hydrogen explosions (which one would expect, I suppose) and a "hump" for a day or two right around the first rain after that. But the levels in and around Tokyo have not risen above the pre-quake average range for at least a month.

Also, while there have been sporadic reports of local veggie outlets selling spinach that came from Fukushima-ken, officially shipments from areas around the plant are being checked and controlled so while there's no guarantee you won't run across contaminated food in your local grocery, the chances are pretty slim. If in doubt, check the package to see where the stuff came from. I don't think canned or frozen makes any difference unless you happen to be importing the stuff from outside Japan.

In the case of veggies, washing them probably helps. Milk is a different story, since the cows ingest the stuff with the grass and the Iodine gets into the milk. Radioactive iodine is bad news because it accumulates in the thyroid. The good news is that the main isotope of Iodine coming from Fukushima has a half-life of around eight days. Avoiding veggies that are high in Iodine might not be a bad idea, either -- at least for a while.

There are a couple things to remember. First, the official "limits" assume constant exposure over your entire lifetime (in other words, at those levels you could eat the stuff every day till you die and never know the difference). So while any additional radiation over and above what you encounter from natural sources is worth avoiding, at the levels we're talking about, you're in more danger flying home and back than living in Tokyo (obviously, the situation is different if you happen to be living within 50 miles of the plant -- but I'll bet few of the readers on this forum are in that position).

The other thing is that modern instrumentation is very sensitive. Given the current political climate, if government learned of trace levels of any radioactive material anywhere and didn't announce it, there would be lynch mobs outside the Diet. So they announce the readings, even if a year's worth of the stuff would amount to less total exposure than, for example, relocating to Denver, and the press turns it into a huge deal. If you poke around on the net you can find average exposure figures for various areas and various activities (like a CAT scan or an international flight) and conversion formulas for Sieverts versus Rads versus Gray and get a better idea exactly how large or small these readings are.


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## Rube

The source was the nightly Japanese news. There has been produce testing positive for radiation far away from fukushima though, even as far as China now. 

Of course the readings are small but the fact is that nobody even thought that they would be readings south of Tokyo and boom there it is, and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better any time soon. 

I'm not an expert on radiation so I wouldn't presume to tell people what is or isn't safe.


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## Rube

There is going to be a special on TV this Wednesday about the various food scandals that have happened the past few years. Should be interesting, seems a lot of people are thinking the same thing.


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## Rube

I just watched the special and it was just old news but it was a little interesting to see how it went down. People who have lived here for a while might remember the meat plant where the president was telling his staff to mix in old meat, bread and the stuff they usually throw away and pork into what was labeled beef for sale to schools and frozen food. Turns out that the staff actually went to the city hall and all the proper channels and nobody wanted to hear about it, finally they had to go to the media and get outside testing before the government actually took action. The government's excuse is that the staff could have just wanted revenge for something. 

I'd like to think that things have changed but I doubt it, too many bureaucrats who just don't want to do their job. It doesn't seem like scandles like that one are wide spread but there are many cases of foriegn products being sold as domestic because of the price difference and domestic goods being sold as more expensive brand goods.


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## Rube

Seemed like a good time to bump this thread. This past week saw containimated beef spread all over Japan. So it's pretty obvious that the government can not keep containimated food from us, complete failure. At this point I'd be willing to bet that no government in the world could do it, it's probably like saying jump into water and not get wet, can't be done. 

We're planning another child in the near future and I'll be honest, I'm glad we don't have a baby right now. Till the plants are safe the food isn't it seems, or as they put it, the food poses no immediate risk.


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