Monday, September 5, 2011

#Radiation in Food: Radish Boya to Set Its Own Cesium Standard

Radish Boya, an online grocer who first alerted Shizuoka Prefecture that one of the Shizuoka teas contained radioactive cesium exceeded the provisional limit by its own testing, is going to set its own standard for cesium in food and drinks that it sells, which is one-tenths of the national provisional standards.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (9/5/2011):

食品宅配サービスの「らでぃっしゅぼーや」(本社・東京)は5日、同社で販売する食品や飲料水などに対する放射性セシウムの自主規制値を設定したと発表した。

Radish Boya, a home delivery service of foodstuff headquartered in Tokyo, announced on September 5 that the company had set its own safety limit for radioactive cesium in food and drinks that it sells.

自主規制値は、コメや青果物、肉類が1キロ・グラムあたり50ベクレル、牛乳や飲料水が同20ベクレルで、いずれも国の暫定規制値の10分の1となる。

The company's safety limit for rice, vegetables and fruits, and meat is 50 becquerels/kilogram, and for milk and drinking water 20 becquerels[/liter]. They are both one-tenths of the national provisional safety limits.

 東北・関東甲信越の17都県を産地とする食品などは、入荷前に抜き取り検査を行い、自主規制値を超えるものは配達しない。同社は10万5000人が会員登録しているが、福島第一原子力発電所の事故以降、食品の放射能汚染に関する問い合わせが1万件以上あったという。

The company will conduct sample testing before it purchases the food items from 17 prefectures in Tohoku and Kanto, and will not deliver the items whose cesium content exceeds the company's safety limit. The company has 105,000 registered customers, and there have been over 10,000 inquiries about radiation contamination of food after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

Things to keep in mind, before you rush to order:

  • Radish Boya does source from Tohoku and northern Kanto, including Fukushima, Miyagi, and Tochigi, and radioactive cesium has been detected in their testing though not exceeding the provisional safety limit or the company's own limit;

  • The testing is still a sample testing, though for now there's no practical way to test all;

  • It does participate in the campaign by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, "Let's help the disaster-affected areas by eating their produce!"

By the way, looking at the Ministry of Agriculture's site, they do seem to feed the government workers there with potentially contaminated vegetables and meat from the disaster-affected areas...

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

A good first start to protect citizens. However, when the impact of radiation such as obvious skin lesions, bleeding, blood disease, and chemical castration become clear --rules will become much more stringent.

Water is also an issue, TAP water which can have cesium-137.

Anonymous said...

"Radish Boya, an online grocer who first alerted Shizuoka Prefecture that one of the Shizuoka contained radioactive cesium"

"That one of the Shizuoka"... what?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@Marc, sorry. Shizuoka teas.

Anonymous said...

Anyone here tried Oisix?

http://www.oisix.com/shop.g6--shinki--earthquake_radiation_shinki__html.htm#01

This firm operates at a "higher" standard compared to Radish Boya.

Oisix webpage claims that they check ALL food (Radish Boya = sample).

1. Is this operationally possible? (given no additional surcharge to the customer).
2. Does Oisix use Tohoku food?

It would be silly to stick to Tohuku food, because the food would have higher level of radiation (by logic) and then Oisix would have to return/stop shipping which would be just counterproductive.

Anonymous said...

Someone can tell me what the hell is this http://www.ustream.tv/channel/radioactive-kyoto ?

Is giving 2.60 uSv/h in Kyoto, what the hell is happening? It was always 0.0something untill now. Is it a joke? Is it broken? Is it true? What the hell is going on?

Anonymous said...

The geiger is now at 4.84 uSv/h...Does somebody know any other live geiger I can check on? I am really worried...I cannot believe it is so high in Kyoto. I checked Mext and it appears almost as usual for Kyoto, but it was such even on March 15 and 16...I mean, who trust them!
Please let me know if you have any information.

Check it out by yourself:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/radioactive-kyoto

Anonymous said...

Showing 0.05μSv now.

Anonymous said...

Another website for Kyoto radiation. Nothing out of the ordinary. Quite low, actually.

http://www.aris.pref.kyoto.jp/map_00.html

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I am the "worried" Anonymous.

Sorry for the false alarm. Only later I could find other websites for Kyoto and they showed the usual measure. Then also the website I reported went back to 0.03 uSv/h! There must have been something wrong in the counter during the time I checked it, before getting back to 0.03 it even raised to 12.04 (I swear I saw those numbers)! I was worried but after this number I realised it was really impossible.

Thanks everybody for the reply and keep up with the good job on this great website.

Anonymous said...

Still at about 2microS/h...
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/radioactive-kyoto
I think it's not broken...

FigNewton said...

Have you guys used this site for food?

http://safefoodmarket.com/

It's also multilingual.. Looks like someone has a good idea.

Anonymous said...

I often use this ustream link for looking about radiation levels in other part of Japan, the computer is indeed showing high measurements, but i wonder if it's really accurate... the geiger counter of the left part previously showed levels turning around 0.1 microsievert to 0.19 microsievert and the computer showed only about 0.05 or 0.06 microsievert... so which is right ? i don't know... the best option for being fixed is to watch the geiger counter when it will be lit on

Anonymous said...

Cpm counter also intrigues me: if it's around 1 or 2 microsievert, why the cpm counter is only showing 60 to 70 cpm ? I am not an expert but i often heard 1 microsievert is equivalent of 100 cpm

Anonymous said...

They are two geiger counters. If placed in different spots at different ground levels they will give different readings of course. The only thing to do for knowing surely what's happening is to contact the owner of the counters...

Anonymous said...

GMC-200とRADIによる線量モニタリング
木造家屋 地上高1m

well, what i've got from those informations, he is using two different materials for measuring radiation at one meter above from the threshold of his house (he is also saying this is a wooden house apparently, please to crrect me if i am wrong in translation). He didn't mention he is measuring from two different spots. Plus someone sent a questionabout it to him, so we may have an answer soon.

Anonymous said...

it just showed 0.08 microsievert then it suddenly went up to 0.84 for falling down to 0.08.. back. something is really wrong there... now it's actually 0.08

Anonymous said...

0.94 right now

Anonymous said...

Is it raining in Kyoto?

Anonymous said...

well you know there were a typhoon in kansai area recently... maybe there is a causal thing with it, i do think it brings a lot of rains there

Anonymous said...

20 microS/h right now...

Anonymous said...

what's going on ? it was nearly 27 microsivert and now it falls down to 0.03 microsievert/hour!

Anonymous said...

From "worried" Anonymous:

I think the geiger there must be broken...you can see the violet line (uSv/h) dropping down to normal levels. When I opened it this afternoon it was raising and the violet line disappeared from the screen. The last number I saw was 12.04 as I said, and then suddenly back to normal...there cannot be such a sudden change in the radiation level I guess.

In Kyoto there was the typhoon two days ago, with strong wind and rain, but today it has been a beautiful sunny day with no wind.

Unfortunately I don't understand Japanese language and could not find other independent online geiger counters until my friend reassured me that other websites showed everything was normal in Kyoto.
I guess it was only that one which went wrong today!

Anonymous said...

Its amazing how the Japanese dont protest this whole Fukushima shit in the streets, how stupid can a nation be ? lambs to the slaughter.....just like in WW2 when a criminally insane government took control and led people into madness..

Anonymous said...

@Fig Newton
Thanks for the link and, previously, links to online food retailers.

@Anonymous
Oisix apparently well regarded and was tempted except that I have just started ordering from Radish Boya and wasn't quite ready to go through all the registration hoops again.

So far, have been pleased with the food RB has sent and am reassured by these new, stricter guidelines, though of course want 0 bequerel food.

Have been disappointed by Natural House and FF in Tokyo who have made no meaningful response to the contamination concerns of customers. It seems to be busines-as-usual.

Would be curious to know more about other readers food sourcing experiences, tips, strategies, etc.

I seem to remember, Fig, that you are leaving soon. Must say, that is looking increasingly likely for us as well. RB and Oisix are doing their bit but it is wearing all of this worry about food safety.

FigNewton said...

@ Anon 10:40am. Yeah, leaving end of September with very mixed emotions. We're going through the long goodbyes with friends, and it's not easy. I thought there would be some resentment, but it seems more like jealousy. I haven't been announcing the leave so much. Just want to slip out the back door.

I hear you about the food concerns being stressful. It's not easy when the government is doing the exact opposite of what's best for it's people. I will continue to research clean sources of food and pass them along, even after I leave. I still have a life time of friends here. Might be good to create a 'radiation free food resource' list. In the future, it could become the new Michelin. :)

kintaman said...

@FigNewton

Best of luck to you FigNewton. I know what you are going through in getting ready to leave is no easy task. Back in the first few days following 3-11 I feared that food contamination would become a serious issue. So based on that and my uncertainty of the status of the reactors themselves (I did not trust TEPCO and the government from day 1) I came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to take my family and leave.

It was extremely hard to leave my friends, extended family and coworkers but if they chose to stay there was nothing I could do. Thankfully not a single person was negative about it. I did get the sense, at the time, that most folks were thinking I was overreacting but they did not say a thing.

Since having left I have been correspondence with those close to me in Japan and many have since changed their attitude about my having left and even gone so far to say they wish they could leave themselves as they do not trust what the media is saying and they are fearful of the food.

Anonymous said...

alttokyo.com has a forum discussing sim topic..

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