Radioactive Beef Issue Deepens in Japan

[farmers_son]

From Meat and Livestock Australia

http://www.mla.com.au/Prices-and-markets/Market-news/Radioactive-beef-issue-deepens-in-Japan

22 July 2011

The crisis facing the Japanese cattle industry deepened this week, with the Japanese government ordering the suspension of beef cattle shipments from Fukushima, following the discovery of radioactive contaminated beef and the distribution of cattle fed with contaminated feed.

The numbers of cattle farms that unknowingly used rice straw containing high levels of radiation as stock feed has spread to nine prefectures, including outside the Tohoku (north east Japan) region. Beef from the majority of 1,485 cattle that had been given the contaminated feed has already been distributed nationwide, causing serious negative reactions among the trade and consumers.

In an attempt to rectify the situation, the government has announced that it will purchase all beef containing radioactive material that is higher than the regulated levels.

In the Tokyo Meat Market this week, beef carcase prices averaged around 17% to 50% lower than last week, hovering close to the post BSE period in early 2002 (following the disease outbreak in Japan in September 2001). Supermarkets have been inundated with calls from consumers to check if beef they purchased from outlets was safe, while retail sales of Japanese domestic beef declined significantly.

Reflecting the current uncertainty with Japanese beef demand, Australian beef export traders reportedly received limited interest from Japanese buyers this week. Shortfed fullset indicative values are not quoted this week due to limited information.

Besides sluggish demand for beef, consumer interest in pork and chicken has also reportedly slowed in the Japanese market, leaving the overall meat trade pondering how they can break through the current situation.

[wd40]

I hate to say this, but if this isn't the epitome of "what goes around, comes around". What a huge price to pay for sticking their noses up at Canadian beef not to long ago.

Bad protectionist attitudes will always sooner or later bite you in the butt.

[Kathy]

Japanese farmers and ranchers must prepare themselves for alot more grief than what happened after BSE crisis. The fallout from the Fukushima nuclear power plants has not stopped, and it will NOT stop for years.

While the radioactive particulate accumulates in the soil, vegetation and water (including groundwater)... people of Japan must still eat. With a choice of radioactive contaminated protein versus radioactive water, or carbs... it is important to note that the absorption of these particles is what counts. This is why there are different "allowable levels" for the different food products.

Much more radioactive particulate can be bound up in proteins, than carbs and less will be absorbed. The radio-activity of the particles causes the proteins to misfold and become undigestable by our stomach enzymes etc. In a way, like cooked and heated/pasteurized food... the energy destroys bonds, creates bonds, and makes it much harder to digest any nutrients or toxins.

What needs to happen won't. and that is massive testing of the food grown in All of Japan... and even the food grown here in North America (especially the west coast region)...

Soon the Japanese government WILL BE forced to destroy the livestock in these regions where high levels of contamination are found. JUST LIKE IN THE UK when they had foot and mouth diseases leaked from a vaccine laboratory.... a cull of animals will prevent the evidence which will point directly to radioactive contaminates causing BSE.

Please don't forget that the prevailing winds will carry their nuclear nightmare to our continent. Our rain and snow will have HOT particles, just not in the concentration they are getting locally.

[Kathy]

Detailed article on beef/japan:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110723a3.html

Are worries over meat warranted?
By MINORU MATSUTANI
Staff writer (see link)

Quote from article that really pisses me off (every time I see it):
"Eating 1 kg of the meat is roughly equal to a radiation dose of 82.65 microsieverts for a period during which radioactive cesium remains in one's body. If a person eats food with radioactive cesium, half the amount remains in the body for nine days for a baby younger than 1. But the duration gets longer as people age, and it takes 90 days for those aged 50.

The 82.65 microsieverts compares with the 100 microsieverts of radiation a person would be exposed to during a one-way flight from Tokyo to New York."

Only an idiot compares the radiation from a plane ride to the internal radiation retained from eating and drinking food. The plane ride only alots for gamma radiation dose which is external, and returns to background level of the altitude you land at, as soon as you land. The dose is comparable to an x-ray which is over and done once the machine is turned off.

Eating radioactive products like cesium, iodine and strontium..et al... allows for the HOT particle that emits radiation (any or all gamma, beta, alpha)... to remain inside you and lodge within your body somewhere; where it will for the extent of its radioactive life, bombard cells immediately adjacent to it, with energy that far exceeds NORMAL electrical currents, eg. 4 electron volts (1-10 normal)... compared to 4 million electron volts (alpha particle = 1 disintegration)....

The staff writer (and all the others who parrot this comparison) are misleading the public... either through their ignorance, or on purpose.

Its like comparing eating a hot coal from the campfire, to holding your hands up to the flames. Both can cause harm - but you don't purposefully eat something that will burn your inerds. (potentially burning your cells for years or even for your life-time, and beyond.)