With all of this radioactive water from Fukushima dumping into the Ocean, is it still safe to eat fish?
Nobody really knows for certain, but probably yes, it's safe to eat.
Nicholas Fisher, a professor of marine sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said that, according to some radiation safety guidelines, people could safely eat 35 pounds of fish each year containing the level of cesium 137 detected in the Japanese fish.
âYouâre not going to die from eating it right away,â he said, âbut weâre getting to levels where I would think twice about eating it.â All the talk about radioactive food in Japan, which earlier banned milk and other farm products from areas near the crippled plant, has made some people uneasy, even thousands of miles away.
Putting this into perpective, eating fish from the Pacific wasn't all that safe before Fukushima. Fishâparticularly the large predatory fish we love eatingâare universally contaminated with large quantities of mercury. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and teratogen. For years, the FDA has advised against young children and child-bearing aged women from eating more than two tiny portions of fish per week. The added risk from the Cesium? Probably not much larger than the risk most of us assume from mercury right now. From where did all of this mercury come? Industrial pollutionâthe burning of filthy fossil fuels primary among the industrial sources.
For those of you furious and fearful about Fukushima: Why aren't you furious about the chemical pollution already poisoning our food supply? Why aren't you as furious about the chicken, beef and eggs consistently contaminated with some of the most virulent and drug-resistant bacteria on the planet? Are you aware that US agribusiness has been arguing for yearsâknowing their filthy industrial farms and slaughterhouses are epidemiological disastersâthat Americans would be safer if they were allowed to intentionally irradiate the hell out of their shit contaminated products. Why doesn't this enrage you, and cause you to refuse to buy this crap?
I'm all for more monitoring of the American food supplyânot just for radioactive contamination, but also pathogenic bacteria and industrial toxins that are far larger and ongoing problems we've ignored since (roughly) the Reagan administration. Muscular monitoring, with the right to shut down and bankrupt food companies that sell tainted food. Perhaps we'd all be better off if some of this anxious, nervous, energy were channeled into demanding such monitoringârather than panic buying of seaweed.