Sure it passed. The detection limit was 25 becquerels/kg, testing done in 5 to 10 seconds at most using brand-new detectors built specifically for the task of rapidly "measuring" the radioactive cesium in rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture.
Never mind the details like that. Shoppers in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo (itself in the more contaminated section of Tokyo) are happy to snap up this year's fresh crop.
From Nikkei Shinbun quoting Kyodo News (9/1/2012; emphasis is mine):
福島産の新米、東京で販売開始 全袋検査に合格
New crop of Fukushima rice sale started in Tokyo, all bags passed the inspection [for radioactive materials]
福島県でことし収穫された新米の販売が１日、東京都江戸川区のアンテナショップ「ふくしま市場」で始まった。同県では８月から放射性物質の全袋検査を実施しており、合格したコメの県外販売は初めて。
New crop of rice harvested in Fukushima Prefecture this year started on September 1 at "Fukushima Market", a shop to test selling the Fukushima produce in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo. Fukushima Prefecture has started testing all bags of rice for radioactive materials since August, and this was the first sale of the rice that passed the test outside Fukushima.
店頭には、検査で検出限界値（１キロ当たり25ベクレル）を下回った本宮市産「五百川」と会津坂下町産「瑞穂黄金」の早場米２品種が並べられた。設置された試食コーナーで買い物客が味を確かめ、名産の桃などと一緒に買っていた。
Bags of rice from Motomiya City and from Aizubange-machi, both of which tested below the detection limit (25 becquerels/kg) were put on sale. Shoppers were sampling at a sampling corner of the store, and seen purchasing [the rice] together with the peaches from Fukushima.
家族４人で訪れていた江戸川区の会社員岡本孝雄さん（45）は震災前からの福島米ファン。「ことしもおいしかった。検査もしているし、何も心配せずに買いました」と話していた。
Mr. Takao Okamoto (age 45), an office worker who lives in Edogawa-ku, was visiting the shop with his family of four. He [said] he had been a fan of Fukushima rice even before the March 11, 2011 disaster. He said, "[The rice] tastes great this year, too. They test the rice, so I bought without any worries at all."
(Poor kids.)
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20 comments:
What is this thing with the Japanese about how great rice tastes? I understand there are subtle differences in flavor but I mean really, if you had one cup of rice you had it all! I'd bet a million dollars if you sat Japanese down in blind taste tests they could not tell one prefecture's rice from another. The idea that it "tastes better than ever" is completely subjective nonsense, of no meaning or interest, just one person's trivial opinion.
Japanese are Foodies, that is they have a food fetish. Most TV shows are obsessed with food. This is one of the rich ironies of the contamination of the nation's bread basket, most of the food produced is now contaminated but the Foodies would rather eat radiation than give up on their fetish. Japan is a friggin' weird country. A huge sex industry; high suicide rate; obsession with the aesthetics of food versus the healthfulness of it; a government of unaccountability run by criminals - yakuza; and an ongoing nuclear crisis that is destroying the country.
A failed country/culture.
@Anon 11:50PM
I understand your point regarding subjective nonsense, but your argument about rice tasting the same sounds bizarre. I eat rice fairly often, although I don't care too much for it. However, I've had different kinds of rice by different brands and purchased from different places, and they all taste different. I also disagree that Japan is "obsessed with food". Everyone is obsessed with food because it's a basic necessity of life.
In fact, from reading the rest of your comment, it sounds like you're trying to find ways to justify Japan as "weird". You do this by comparing to your own country as the standard for "normal".
I don't know where you live, but all of the things you pointed out are also huge problems (or worse) in the United States of America, and some of them are huge problems in most or all of the "first world" countries.
I'm strongly under the impression that you're turning a blind eye to your own country's problems because it makes you feel superior and secure to compare with other countries that you don't understand. That's the only purpose behind pointing fingers at everyone else while ignoring your own failures.
@Anon 11:50PM again
The more I think about it, the stranger your comment is to me. I don't know about the difference between prefectures, but did you know there are lots of different kinds of rice that are completely different in shape, texture and taste? Or are you just assuming that all rice in the universe is almost exactly the same? How often do you even eat rice?
It's ironic how you mentioned subjectivity, when your comment is reeking of it.
How do you know "most TV shows are obsessed with food"? Do you actively watch Japanese TV? Did you accidentally tune in to a Japanese cooking channel and assumed that all their shows are cooking? I don't know if you realize this, but Japan is a pretty big country with lots of different kinds of media. I strongly doubt that "most of their television shows are obsessed with food".
You also claimed that they choose to eat radiation instead of giving up a "fetish for food". I don't know if you've noticed, but people need to eat food to survive. You're expecting them to choose between death/starvation and possibly contaminated food with a slow death. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to obtain food that isn't contaminated? Try tracking how food gets from manufacturers to your dining table, then you'll realize how difficult it is for us to get exact details.
You also mentioned the healthfulness of food, while obesity rates soar in virtually every "first world" country. If I'm not mistaken, suicide rates everywhere are also climbing.
The "sex industry" comment is a common excuse people use to berate Japan. If what I heard is true, the United States of America has the world's largest pornography industry, and is also the world's largest source of child pornography. They just like to point the finger at Japan to distract from themselves. It's an old trick, and everybody falls for it all the time.
The United States of America also has a ridiculously corrupt government, and they're not the only corrupt country. But the people in those coutries just want to be happy and believe that they have control.
Incompetence surrounding the use of nuclear technology is also not a Japan-only issue. Ongoing use of nuclear tech has been slowly poisoning the population everywhere. There's plenty of evidence that supports this, but of course it's not something anyone wants to admit because they "don't want to go backwards".
I just find it beyond ridiculous that everyone seems to be focusing so hard on the argument that the Fukushima incident and the clusterfuck following it could only have occurred in Japan. They're completely missing the point. Nobody is learning the lessons they should be. They're not concerned about the dangers of nuclear tech, they're only using Fukushima as an excuse to get high by defining themselves as superior in comparison.
"If it was us, it wouldn't have happened". Bullshit. All the people who believe that are inevitably setting themselves up for a very rude awakening. I still maintain that the same thing could, would, can and WILL happen anywhere else in the world. Stop focusing on how the nuclear disaster happened to occur in Japan, and start thinking about what we're going to do when it happens elsewhere.
No, you are right, USA run by the Jews is much worse than Japan, I agree.
But Japanese always do that, if you criticize their perfect country they always come up with that original line: "but what about America"? If you want to talk about America we can, but that is another topic.
No, I can't tell any difference between one rice and another and anyway it is such a trivial point as to be a waste of time to spend more than five seconds discussing it, but Japanese could spend hundreds of thousands of hours on their meaningless and incredibly stupid, pointless television shows talking about how their rice is better than other countries rice (radiation adds that special touch) or about any number of topics of such inanity that it goes beyond the realms of stupidity. It sounds like you have never lived in Japan and don't know how stupid and inane this culture really is. There is no doubt that a vast majority of Japanese TV shows are devoted to FOOD and obsessing about the aesthetics, the flavor, and mainly how the people eating it are BETTER than you because they can afford fancy food, and you can't! But people seem to take some perverse delight in watching Japanese stars talk with mouthfuls of food (a disgusting custom).
I say, let them eat up, and enjoy the radiation. But don't force their contaminated products onto the rest of the world with their usual lies and deceptions.
Japanese TV shows are the most moronic and obnoxious pile of nonsense imaginable. The majority of them consist of about 20 people all talking, eating (and talking loudly while eating), shouting, laughing and jumping around on a stage like a bunch of monkeys. I am not saying that to sound like a racist but it is true! Of course, this is not how normal Japanese people behave, but the crap that is programmed for them to consume by their controllers. And they are happy to lap it all up.
Nikkei is even more pro nuke than Yomiuri, I feel. However, considering that it is the industrialists union (keindanren) mouthpiece, this is hardly surprising.
What I do not understand is why these news include comments from individuals who have no other qualification than being able to express exactly the opinion the interviewer wants to hear. How can such gross propaganda find space in a major Japanese news agency and on a major newspaper is a mistery to me.
Beppe
Sorry but what country do you view faring so much better than Japan in all the aspects you mention? I hope you are not thinking of the US: TV over there is no less atrocious than Japan; americans obesity talks at lengths about food obsession and food quality there; US government forced upon the rest of the world the 2008 financial crisis and spent its citizens taxes to save the banks that caused and profited from the same crisis; US army is invades other countries and contaminates them with the depleted uranium it uses in its ammunitions and I could go on...
Japan has made mistakes during this nuclear crisis, many if you wish, but what is the point of insulting the country and its culture as a whole?
@anon 2.39 , spot on man, having lived over in japan for many years i cannot fucking stand the shallow idiotic inane nature of tv in japan, after 2 mins of watching i go around the bend, hence i dont watch tv over here... most japanese love it and cant see the idiocy and brainwashing .... also have you noticed how foreigners are always shown in a bad light on tv or shown as fools? racist fucks also
Is there any chance a company like Radish Boya might do some independent testing to confirm the accuracy of this new fast test? What are they doing with the rice that fails the test? As for corruption around the world the way it works is if you have a government you have corruption because government are organized corruption.
@ Beppe
There really isn't much of a mystery, media outlets aren't truly independent they require advertisers their sponsors money can determine the stories that are covered and the tone of the story. Companies learned long ago if you can't beat them buy them if they don't own the outlet outright they control it through advertising dollars/yen.
In the US news outlets have become opinion mills instead of disseminators of facts hard news doesn't sell airtime or subscriptions news has shifted from exposing corporate malfeasance to exposing personal scandal. Everybody knows Madonna is getting naked on her new world tour but almost no one knows GE reactors failed in Japan. It isn't that the story wasn't reported it was how it was reported. The mainstream story was everything is OK it could never happen here now on to Prince William's upcoming wedding. The funny thing is GE owns NBC and a slew of other media outlets that make sure you know everything about Casey Anthony and the latest Hollywood divorces and very little about nuclear accidents.
maybe they can add some "vitamins" to the rice?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriberi#History
ehm, "mistery" was intended as sarcasm... and, by the way, as to personal scandals, in another country the Lewinsky affair would have been liquidated with a "lucky him".
Food that does not pass the test is usually returned to the producer who is told not to sell it. No, to my disbelief I never heard that is it confiscated on the spot and destroyed by the public authority.
Building npps in an earthquake prone location like Japan is especially idiotic and was rightfully awarded with the world first multiple meltdown. Having said so, getting people to believe that it might never happen in the US (forgot TMI already?) is quite an achievement in terms of propaganda. Nuclear near misses should be advertised more: unfortunately, the nuke industry manages to project this idea that a npp is a high tech plant operated by extra skilled personnel, whereas to me it looks like a regular industrial plant (built keeping costs low, as any plant), operated by regular personnel (humans that make mistakes) and the only peculiarity is that they manipulate stuff that it is thousands of times more poisonous than what normal people think is a deadly poison (say, cyanide), which I believe is insane and criminal to start with.
Sorry to have to say it but thanks to their Government the Japanese people are "Dead Men walking"
It seems no one has one scintilla of factual data relating to the conditions at Fukushima. I feel the "threat" is overblown by orders of magnitude thanks to blogs like rense.com and enenews.com.
Has anyone notice how enenews.com is the primary news source used by rense for fukushima information? AMazing. I never heard of enenews.com until Fukushima...and all of sudden...there it was.
I think there is a lot of disinformation going around. Most of the "big" bloggers appear to have been payed off to continue the propaganda and BS to confuse truth seekers.
The internet has failed miserably because it is so filled with disinformation, propaganda, shills, uneducated derelicts, educated derelicts and speculation. There is no truth on the internet, nor is there any on the major TV station.
Welcome to the virtual reality you call life. Its a cesspool of fraud, cronyism, obsolescence, secrecy and genocide. If there not killing brown people, they are trying to kill their senior and poor population. Its amazing that this goes on around us each and every day. Yet, the majority continues on banking at the big bailed-out banks, paying their taxes, voting, saluting the military and shopping at the mega corporations. All of which are the axis of evil.
Most of the population has been zombified. They either don't know what's going on, or they believe they have no power to change what's going on.
Its quite frustrating. And hopeless too.
Now that I have wasted your time with my rant, does anyone really know if food in Japan is affected by radiation? ANyone at all. Please provide us data. Data that can be reviewed scientifically. What is that? There is none. Then how can the myriad of stories be written about the radiation issue?
Forget people. Just prepare yourself for death...because your already half way there.
@dogismyth. The point of this blog and others IS to provide information about the contamination of Japanese food and water. The Internet IS sucessful in passing on knowledge. Yes, there is irradiated food and water. For various reasons, national, local govt, food organisations and producers all want to hide facts.
The reality is real, and any doubter should splash out on a plane ticket and go to Belarus or around Chenobyl and see for themselves what Japan will be like in 25 years.
And this massive coverup is not only peculiar to Japan. Does Obama talk about irradiated fish off the west coast? Or Canada? Or the British about fish near Sellafields?
The reality is, people in Japan need information, factual information that is not tainted by multi-billion dollar power companies or well connected food organisations.
These blogs are trying to help. Remember cesium not only harms us now as it accumulates, but it's genetic deformations will affect generations to come.
@dogismyth, the data on radioactive materials (mostly cesium, but also strontium and plutonium, and silver) in food in Japan is on the government sites, municipal government sites, and sites of citizens' volunteer measuring stations.
I do find certain bloggers in Japan and in the US who intentionally spread false or exaggerated or incomplete information. Unfortunately those are the people who get quoted in the English media (like Business Insider most recently over thyroid "abnormalities" in Fukushima children).
are you saying dr Caldecott is wrong?
and are you also saying the machine is inaccurate?
Caldicott is batshit insane.
paul, it's not Dr. Caldicott I was talking about, but about Japanese bloggers.
Since the "Japanese bloggers" constantly lie about Fukushima and the radioactive damage to crops, would the owner of this blog like to provide an answer about this? http://www.enviroreporter.com/gallery/fukushima-gallery/mutated-california-sunflowers-july-2012/
@ anon 3:27pm
Your link says
"The mutations in the sunflowers below go far beyond anything normally seen in the plant."
Really? Got any real proof to back up this claim because a few pictures of some gnarled plants in someone's backyard doesn't prove jack. I don't see pictures from all their previous years being offered for comparison. The article you cited doesn't mention the fact that sunflowers can also be mutated by chemicals. The article claims 100% mutation in the California crop but they only offer a hand full of photos of someone's home garden as proof. Where are the pictures of acres upon acres of damaged plants from across the state? Where is the radioassay of the damaged plants and the soil where they were grown that points to radioactive contamination as the cause of all the mutation? Why hasn't an organization like Greenpeace come to a similar conclusion and publicized it?
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