Hi MidwestMad,
Measuring
radiation in food can be difficult, but not too difficult. Making
laboratory grade accurate measurements on food does require special
techniques and equipment to measure accurately the radiation contained
in the food. These include heavy lead (Pb) measurement chambers and
dehydrating or burning of the food source to remove water. A lab will
measure a food source for about $1000 a sample, too rich for me! I see
the day when food suppliers will not only certify "organic" or "GMO
free", but "radiation free" as well. If you do searches on the
Internet, you will find a ton of info from folks who test food for
radiation.
The idea with the use of a Geiger counter like the
Inspector ($550 - $600 on Amazon) is to detect the radiation. I
personally own about 10 Geiger counters and love the Inspector, it is
superior to anything I have. The Inspector is a small, lightweight,
portable and most important very sensitive detector. With whole foods
the ability to measure accurately is impaired, the goal is to see if
there is radiation present. Any radiation readings above background
level (40 - 50 counts per minute here) indicates some level of radiation
present in the food.
It is difficult to measure certain foods in the
grocery store. An example would be canned food; the alpha and beta
radiation is blocked by the can and the liquid in can also attenuates
the radiation. Gamma radiation will penetrate the can, but may not be
present and the food may be contaminated by an alpha or beta emitter
only (undetectable in the can). Stores frown on you opening a can to
take a reading, so you buy and take it home and test it.
Some
packaging will make measuring radiation difficult. Alpha radiation is
stopped by a single piece of paper, but alpha (plutonium, polonium,
etc.) in the body is 20 times more dangerous than beta or gamma
radiation. Beta radiation will penetrate paper OK, but steel and water
really cut it down. Gamma goes through most materials except thick
lead, etc.
I have had great success detecting radiation on fresh
vegetables, especially leafy vegetables. I put the veggies in a produce
bag and set it in the cart and lay the Inspector Geiger counter on the
bag and take a 2 minute average reading. Need to be discreet here, do
not want to attract attention, otherwise other shoppers will want you to
measure their food and that could take a lot of time.
Unfortunately,
this problem is only going to get worse with time (like filling a
bucket one drop at a time, eventually the bucket gets full). People
from Japan set of radiation detectors in airport screening areas because
they have consumed so much radiation from their food, etc., they are
radioactive. Radiation is not removed from the body and once in the
body, it is there for life, so a little radiation here and there soon
adds up to a large amount (called bioaccumulation). Some of the big
radiation isotopes from Japan are Cesium 134/137 (goes to the muscles,
look like potassium to the body), Strontium 90(goes to the bones, looks
like calcium to the body) and Iodine 131 (goes to the thyroid). There
are hundreds of different isotopes at Fukushima and each have different
effects on the body.
A couple of good information websites are:
enenews.com (read the comments as well, some very knowledgeable folks)
radiationnetwork.com
rense.com (some continuous focus of Fukushima radiation here)
