Japan’s Food-Chain Threat Multiplies as Fukushima Radiation Spreads
Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan’s food chain as unsafe levels of cesium found in beef on supermarket shelves were also detected in more vegetables and the ocean.
More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported July 23, after the Miyagi local government said 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets.
Agriculture Minister Michihiko Kano has said officials didn’t foresee that farmers might ship contaminated hay to cattle ranchers. That highlights the government’s inability to think ahead and to act, said Mariko Sano, secretary general for Shufuren, a housewives organization in Tokyo.
“The government is so slow to move,” Sano said. “They’ve done little to ensure food safety.”
Aeon Co., Japan’s biggest supermarket chain, said today 4,108 kilograms (9,056 pounds) of beef suspected of being contaminated was inadvertantly put on sale at 174 stores across Japan. Supermarkets started testing beef after the Tokyo Metropolitan Government found radioactive cesium in slaughtered cattle this month.
The government on July 19 banned cattle shipments from Fukushima prefecture, though not before some had been slaughtered and shipped to supermarkets. A ban on shiitake mushrooms from another part of Fukushima was introduced on July 23 because of cesium levels, the health ministry said.
“Some areas still have high radiation dosages and if you also eat products from these areas, you’ll get a considerable amount of radiation,” said Sentaro Takahashi, a professor of radiation control at Kyoto University in western Japan. “This is why the government needs to do something fast.”
Radiation in food is measured in becquerel, a gauge of the strength of radioactivity in materials such as Iodine-131 and Cesium-137.
As much as 2,300 becquerels of cesium a kilogram was detected in the contaminated beef, according to a July 18 statement from the health ministry. The government limit is 500 becquerels per kilogram.
Seafood is another concern after cesium-134 in seawater near the Fukushima plant climbed to levels 30 times the allowed safety standards last week, according to tests performed by Tokyo Electric Power Co, national broadcaster NHK reported. – Bloomburg
Reported by this Ministry in March, 2011: The radiation will be spread by the weather, and the radiation will be in the rain that jet streams from Japan to the USA.
The ocean will give its testimony soon about the radiated water as it moves through the currents and affects the sea life.
The domino effect of the collapse of the natural world causes calamities in perhaps for us the least expected of ways, but it is all a part of Yahweh’s plan in bringing judgment upon mankind.
