Localvores: still eating radioactive fallout?

[Arcana]

As much as I am passionate about good, local organic food, this stuff about the fallout from Fukushima being spread all over the Northern Hemisphere makes me want to give blueberries from Chile another chance.

Lately U.C Berkeley has been doing some soil and food testing, the results can be seen here:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2525

They are going by the risk model that is linear because it is most accepted, however there are many concerned folks in the public forum who think the low dose=high risk model should be more appropriate, I am not sure what to think of this.

Also, note that a large amount of produce comes from California, especially organic brands like Earthbound Farms.

And then there is this recent article from Europe advising pregnant and nursing mothers and young children from eating leafy vegetables and drinking milk, and this is from France which gets the fallout far after California, Missouri, and Massachusetts get the fallout.

http://www.euractiv.com/en/health/radiation-risks-fukushima-longer-negligible-news-503947

Another organization calling to reevaluate these risks is the Physicians for Social Responsibility(don't know how reliable they are though):

http://www.psr.org/news-events/press-releases/psr-concerned-about-reports-increased-radioactivity-food-supply.html

[ClarkUSA]

1. I'm fortunate enough to be able to buy local organic produce from my co-op.

Recently, a supermarket I went to had Organic Farms powdered skim and buttermilk 50% off. I bought up every single package. Fortunately, none of the farm co-ops in my area have had any fallout from Japan. I've already started growing my own organic produce which will yield a nice harvest in a few months. Earthbound Farms is truly compromised. I never bought much from them even before this crisis (too expensive) and I certainly wouldn't start now.

[Arcana]

2. Where do you live?

The fallout has been detected in milk in Arkansas, Arizona, and Ireland. So far the Berkeley tests are the only ones I've seen testing food other than milk, so who knows how much is already all in farms all across the U.S.

[Nihil]

4. So wash it before you eat it.

Seriously, you need to wash all of the other stuff off the food
(e.g., bird crap, soil, whatever) so as the fallout is particulate
matter that is on the surface, washing the fruit will remove it too.

The milk is a problem (as would be any meat if/when it gets measured)
as the cows don't wash the stuff off the grass, they just eat it and
thus bring it into the food chain.

(And no, I am *not* referring to anything grown in the vicinity of
the power plants, just to the things being affected by the occasional
particles transported over global distances.)

[Arcana]

5. Washing doesn't get rid of isotopes absorbed by the crops.

This is an issue especailly for produce like lettuce and spinach.

[Tumbulu]

3. I'm scared

as I eat eggs from my pastured chickens, wheat that I grow and feed to my hens and local produce, all from N. Calif.

All local and organic....suddenly I am looking at imported fruits and veggies at my coop.

[caraher]

6. Did you actually read the Berkeley data?

For some perspective, see the numbers in (parentheses) in their table.

The number in parentheses is the number of kilograms of the item that one would need to consume to equal the radiation exposure of a single round trip flight from San Francisco to Washington D.C. (0.05 mSv).

The smallest value in the table was 89 kg for topsoil; most numbers were in the hundreds or thousands, and a lot of levels were below the detection limit of their equipment. That means to suffer a dose of 50 microSievert you'd have to eat 89 kg of topsoil - and more of each food listed.

Even if the conventional radiation hazard estimates are too small by a factor of 10, this hazard is not great enough to lose sleep over. For comparison, eating one banana gives a dose of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose">around 75 nanoSievert from naturally-occurring potassium, so this 50 microSv benchmark the UC Berkeley folks used is equivalent radiation exposure to eating a bit less than 700 bananas. So you should be roughly as cautious about the food they measured as you should about eating bananas.

It is an additional dose to what you normally receive, but a tiny one nonetheless as present levels of contamination.

[kristopher]

7. The banana comparison is completely unworkable

This has been posted a thousand times to place the false "it's like a banana" meme crafted by the nuclear fission industry in its proper place.

Bananas are radioactive—But they aren't a good way to explain radiation exposure. When you eat a banana, your body's level of Potassium-40 doesn't increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.

It is a bit more complicated than that, but the complexity reduces the validity of the comparison even more.


Caldicott writing on the differrence between external radiation and internal emitters, Your airplane flight is an example of external radiation, the food issue deals with "internal emitters".

...Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). <2> After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time.

The grave effects of internal emitters are of the most profound concern at Fukushima. It is inaccurate and misleading to use the term "acceptable levels of external radiation" in assessing internal radiation exposures. To do so, as Monbiot has done, is to propagate inaccuracies and to mislead the public worldwide (not to mention other journalists) who are seeking the truth about radiation's hazards.

2) Nuclear industry proponents often assert that low doses of radiation (eg below 100mSV) produce no ill effects and are therefore safe. But , as the US National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report has concluded, no dose of radiation is safe, however small, including background radiation; exposure is cumulative and adds to an individual's risk of developing cancer....

How nuclear apologists mislead the world over radiation
George Monbiot and others at best misinform and at worst distort evidence of the dangers of atomic energy
Helen Caldicott
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 April 2011 12.10 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation

I trust that since you now have accurate information on the two items of corporate propaganda, you will refrain from spreading them in the future.

[Voice for Peace]

8. thanks.. keep it up

If people want to minimize the danger, let it be based on fact - and only for the benefit of reassuring frightened people.

The odds aren't great, apparently, that tiny doses will be deadly -- but even small odds give a good reason to stay informed, and take precautions whenever possible. Especially with this disaster ongoing, seemingly getting worse, with no end in sight.

[Arcana]

9. What are you doing to protect yourself?

[Voice for Peace]

11. At this point just learning whatever I can.

Another thing I'm doing is making an effort to not freak out, to keep perspective.

Trying to educate my kids who are more at risk than I am because they're so much younger & childbearing age.

Accepting my mortality and having some trust in the serendipities.

I'm inclined to start avoiding leafy vegetables and milk, cheese. Don't feel like walking in the rain so much. (in MA isotopes found in rainwater)

[Arcana]

18. Me too.

I'm drinking almond milk...but I wonder if it's getting there too now.

I'm 22 goddamit, I'm not supposed to be writing my will now.

[Voice for Peace]

19. It's all very scary and confounding - but do not focus too much on what you're afraid of,

it will only make you crazy. I don't know enough facts to reassure anybody about the radiation, but there are so many things to fear in life.

But life is not for fear. Be as informed as you can, and wise, but don't obsess on the dire possibilities. Even apart from the radiation there are a zillion things that can go wrong & kill you. Don't let yourself be consumed by this stuff. At 22 you are still just beginning a beautiful adventure.

If it so happens that it gets cut short, you'll deal with it when it happens.

Forgive me for giving unsolicited advice but I know fear well, and it's not our friend, and we don't have to live with it.

[Arcana]

20. During Chernobyl did fallout reach the U.S in comparable numbers?

Because I was born 2 years after that incident. Heh.

Where is my third arm?

[Voice for Peace]

21. I have a friend who lived in Upper NY state near some plant and developed thyroid cancer 20 years

later. what can we do? seriously, I have no idea - except to try and enjoy every day; and know that despite statistics, reality can defy the odds, make tons of creative deviations, break its own rules, cause the impossible.

Life requires a lot of letting go, learning to stay in a simple place, in order to enjoy it and to see clearly.

[caraher]

10. I am aware of the flaws of the banana analogy

As well as the difference between internal and external emitters. "My" airplane flight was in the link posted in the OP. It is still possible to model an internal emitter to get an overall dose estimate given things like the biological half life and any accumulation in specific organs in addition to the physical half life and emissions of the radionuclide, and I presume those who compiled the estimates are aware of how to do this.

The point is that the levels reported are low and comparable to the natural radioactivity of many things including foods. It is not a good thing that radioactive products of this disaster can get in our food, but at the reported levels it's also not something that should provoke an immediate sense of intense fear, either.

[kristopher]

13. Why use the qualifier "intense"?

Fear is an on/off emotional response, not a wine selection.

[XemaSab]

12. South American vegetables are probably worse for you

than eating something with a little radioactive fairy dust.

Who knows what pesticides they use? Who knows what diseases are clinging to the veggies? Who knows how much pollution flying them up here generates in the local airspace?

Finally, paying $4 for a bell pepper is bad for your health. :P

[flamingdem]

14. I'll take toxins over isotopes, but that's a good point about pesticides South of the Border

Organic is best, there are some organic fruits from South america in stores, Whole Foods has ecuadorian organic bananas

[Arcana]

15. Do you eat chocolate?

Almost all chocolate is grown in the Southern Hemisphere.

[XemaSab]

16. Sugar cane, coconut, chocolate, coffee, cocaine:

All good things that are grown in the tropics.

Lettuce, apples, peppers, oranges:

Meh. :shrug:

(Then again, I would rather eat lettuce from South Georgia than lettuce from the Salton Sea. That place is NASTY.)

[flamingdem]

17. No isotopes en mi dulce chocolate! Muy bueno! nt