Saturday, August 27, 2011

Another #Radioactive Rice from Chiba, 46 Becquerels/Kg

The rice has been cleared for shipping, because the level of radioactive cesium is much below the national provisional safety limit of 500 becquerels/kg which will pose no threat to health, according to the authorities in Chiba.

It's "Koshihikari" brand rice, but since it's not from Niigata the rice may be blended and sold. If it's blended, there is no requirement to state where the rice was harvested.

Caveat emptor, except the buyers don't have all information available to them to decide on their own.

From Sankei Shinbun (8/27/2011):

千葉県は27日、市川市で栽培された収穫後のコメの本検査で、国の暫定基準値(1キログラム当たり500ベクレル)を大幅に下回る46ベクレルの放射性セシウムを検出したと発表した。「健康に問題ないレベル」として、同日以降の出荷を認めた。

Chiba Prefecture announced on August 27 that 46 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from the rice harvested in Ichikawa City. The prefectural government considers the level as "not affecting health", and has permitted the shipment of the rice as of August 27.

 東京電力福島第1原発の事故後、千葉県では白井市の収穫前のコメから微量のセシウムを検出しており、今回で2例目。全国では茨城県鉾田市、福島県二本松市に続いて4例目となった。

In Chiba Prefecture, a small amount of radioactive cesium was detected in the rice before the harvest in Shirai City. The detection of radioactive cesium in rice in Ishikawa City is the second in Chiba, the fourth in Japan. One location in Hokota City in Ibaraki Prefecture and one location in Nihonmatsu City in Fukushima Prefecture also had radioactive cesium in rice.

 千葉県によると、セシウムが検出されたのは、24日に市川市の1カ所で採取したコシヒカリの玄米。千葉や野田、成田、銚子、旭の5市のコメからは検出されなかった。

According to Chiba Prefecture, radioactive cesium was detected from the brown rice of Koshihikari taken on August 24 in one location in Ichikawa City. No radioactive cesium was detected in rice in Chiba City, Noda City, Narita City, Choshi City and Asahi City.

 千葉県では、これで本検査を終えて基準値以下だった42市町村でコメの流通が可能になった。

Rice can be sold and shipped in 42 municipalities in Chiba Prefecture now that the post-harvest testing has been complete and the level of radioactive cesium was below the provisional safety limit.

That's what the provisional "safety" limit is there for: to plant the idea in people's mind that anything below that limit is "safe". Clearly many producers and all of government bureaucrats from municipal level upward believe that, and excoriate consumers who still don't buy that argument (and don't buy the produce).

9 comments:

jmdesp said...

I've got a horrible and terrifying news for you : during years you have innocently eaten bananas. They dare export them !!

And you apparently never ever suspected the natural radiation level of bananas is on average 100 Bq/Kg. Go to any supermarket with a radiation detector and you can check by yourself.

Don't be afraid of bananas and of this rice. 100 Bq/Kg in food is low enough to be perfectly harmless, the more when so many people smoke, spend nights of booze with collegues in a bar, eat a good quantity of red meat, all of which are conclusively linked with highened risks of cancer, which is *not* the case for bananas.

So please be vigilant if the japanese government trudly hides something that should revealed, like they just said nothing about the speedi information revealing radiation was going north in the early days of the catastroph, but don't invent a danger where there is none.

Anonymous said...

So there are people like jmdesp who still want to willfully confuse natural radiation and artificial radionuclides that came out of nuclear reactors. Amazing.

Anonymous said...

You would think there is an opening for a brand to market goods that have not been sourced from areas known to be hopelessly and continuously hopelessly contaminated by non naturally occuring radionuclides.

The brand slogan,'I don't believe here today and gone tomorrow purveyors of nuclear disaster waste as a healthy food.'

Anonymous said...

Anon at 11:23am, so... what is the difference?

jmdesp said...

That's called physics actually. The helium nucleus, electron, or high energy photon that form alpha, beta and gamma radiation don't care if the isotope they come from is "natural" or "artificial", they're still the same physical particle. There can be some variation in the energy they cary, but we're not talking here about a really significant difference in this regard between cs-137 and Potassium-40.
The other thing that can be different is the chemical toxicity of the element itself, but both here are not directly toxic (and this would not be about radiation per itself then).

What I'm worried about is if *all* the rice is tested or not. There can be local hot spot where the concentration of nucleides is higher.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@jmdesp, looking at Chiba's website, they test one rice paddy per village (I should say "former" villages", as they have been incorporated into cities). If a sample from one rice paddy passes, the crop from the whole village is good to be sold. "Hot spot? What is that?" must be the attitude of municipalities and the growers.

So, the short answer to your worry: no.

Beef, vegetables, fruits - same story. They test about 1% of what's being sold, at most. One sample from one plot in one town, and if that passes the test (500 bq/kg) the whole crop in the town is good.

Anonymous said...

Are there no independant studies regarding the rice? I find it hard to believe that radiation is so low when other foods are so high. This is pure BS imho.
Kodama says radiation is accumulative. Its not as if you eat rice three times a day or anything, is it?

Is it?
The gov must be shitting their pants about Tohoku's rice. Consequently you're only going to hear it is safe to eat. Rice means so much to the Japanese and THE symbol for 'food' itself. Rice is the kamisama of food. Tell the country that it is inedible and you'd may as well just shut the north down for good. And rice becomes so many foods and the rice hay eaten by the cows later...

Yah, yah, its safe to eat guys. Ware ware nihonjin wouldn't lie to you would we? Would we?
Here drink this sake, you'll feel better after.

If they are telling porkies or not testing sufficiently, then this is a form of slow genocide, desu yo?

Ummm nuclear rice for nuclear families. Eat it, says your friendly government. And have some peaches, too. Having children front a campaign to sell contaminated fruit is pretty low and cowardly and shows you the ends they will go to in order for you to eat it.

Anonymous said...

The plan was to buy in uncontaminated rice destined as famine relief for Africa and exchange it for a smaller quantity of premium contaminated rice.

Anonymous said...

you should look at this meeting last friday

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16878593
This interview with members of different ministries was organized by a group of mothers called いのちを守るお母さん全国ネットワーク。

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