Radiation From Fukushima Is Probably in Your Sushi, but It Isn’t Going to Kill YouNearly five years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, most seafood caught off the coast of Japan is safe to eat, according to a new study. The research, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said "the overall contamination risk for aquatic food items is very low" and has decreased steadily since the tsunami-stricken nuclear reactor meltdowns in 2011. The study, by a team of researchers from several Japanese universities, may quell longstanding fears about the safety of fish caught in Japanese waters since the disaster. “Highly contaminated foods attract people’s attention,” lead author Hiroshi Okamura told The Washington Post. “Some people cry not to eat seafoods and other people argue many foods are not dangerous.” The authors note that often contradictory statements on seafood safety stem from ongoing reports of fluctuating radiation levels.

But the differences actually can be attributed to confusing analysis, they wrote. For this study, the authors crafted a new method to estimate levels of cesium -- the radioactive, potentially cancer-causing element that leaked from Fukushima -- in all seafood. They found most fish were fine for consumption. Some fish, including large bottom feeders and freshwater fish and crustaceans, did have higher levels of cesium, but only those near the Fukushima area. sushi making kit tokyoMost of those freshwater species consumed by humans are farmed. jiro dreams of sushi successThe average consumer wouldn't come into contact with a potentially dangerous fish unless they were caught by leisure fishermen.sushi new york zagat

Japan adopted some of the strictest seafood regulations in the world after Fukushima, and for years the country has attempted to quash fears about one of its staple cuisines, Time notes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said for years there is zero evidence that any fish in the U.S. food supply had levels of radiation that would pose a danger to human health. March 11 marks the five-year anniversary of the disaster at the nuclear power plant, where reactors melted down following an earthquake-driven tsunami. sashimi grade salmon online ukIt was the biggest nuclear accident since Chernobyl, fraught with ongoing leaks of radioactive material into the ocean.can i buy sushi grade fish at the grocery store Three former executives of the company that owned the Fukushima plant were indicted this week on charges of criminal negligence.delivery sushi tei bekasi

Seafood Fukushima Fukushima Seafood Seafood Radiation Japan Every day, hundreds of tons of fish and seaweed are bought and sold at Tokyo's seafood markets. The markets are still bustling, but prices have fallen sharply amid concerns that some products might be contaminated with radioactive material leaking from Japan's troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. How likely is that? food delivery in w2 londonNPR posed the question to Masashi Kusakabe, director of the Nakaminato Laboratory for Marine Radioecology not far from Tokyo. The research center is devoted to figuring out precisely what happens to radioactive material that gets into the ocean. Kusakabe says what's been getting into the Pacific Ocean near Fukushima is mostly radioactive iodine. It dissolves in water, and experiments have shown that the iodine tends to concentrate in algae. Then it gets even more concentrated as it works its way up the food chain.

Kusakabe says that might sound bad, "but the iodine we're talking about now is iodine -131, which has a very short half-life at eight days." Every eight days, half of the iodine goes away. So after a few weeks, there's not much iodine-131 left in a fish. Kusakabe says radioactive cesium is a lot worse: Its half-life is measured in decades, not days. But so far, much less cesium has gotten into the ocean at Fukushima. Sea Farmer's Livelihood Destroyed By Tsunami, Threatened By Fear Livelihood Destroyed By Tsunami, Threatened By Fear Also, the ocean is so vast that radioactive materials are heavily diluted by the time they travel even a few miles. So the Japanese fish most likely to become contaminated are the ones that spend their entire lives right near the Fukushima power plant. And the government isn't letting fishing vessels anywhere near the place. But what about the ocean-going fish that show up on sashimi platters — fish like salmon and tuna? Might they be contaminated by radioactive material from the power plant?

"I don't think so," he says, "because tuna move everywhere. They travel, you know, maybe hundreds of kilometers, so they never stay there." A tuna might swim by the Fukushima plant. But it wouldn't hang around long enough to become seriously contaminated. Kusakabe says the biggest threat to the Japanese fishing industry right now isn't radiation. "Most people now think, 'Oh, it's very dangerous to eat fish in Japan or fish around this coast.' But I think it's very safe. So now is your chance to eat fish, because it's cheap," he says. Asked if he is still eating fish, Kusakabe replies, "Oh, of course. Kusakabe says once people realize that Japanese fish are safe, he expects the price of Pacific Bluefin to go back up.Those looking for evidence of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan may need search no further than their next plate of sushi, Stanford University researchers report. The researchers tested 15 Pacific bluefin tuna that had migrated from Japan to the California coast and found that the levels of radioactive cesium in these fish were 10  times higher than those found in bluefin tuna from the years before the disaster.

Before you swear off your maguro nigiri, it's important to realize that the levels of radiation the researchers found from the cesium in the tuna were exceedingly low - about 30 times less than the amount of radiation given off by other common, naturally occurring elements in the tuna we eat. The  findings appeared Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The finding should be reassuring to the public," said Timothy J. Jorgensen, associate professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, who was not involved with the study. "As anticipated, the tuna contained only trace levels of radioactivity that originated from Japan. These levels amounted to only a small fraction of the naturally occurring radioactivity in the tuna, and were much too small to have any impact on public health. "Thus, there is no human health threat posed by consuming migratory tuna caught off the west coast of the United States." Still, the fact that the researchers could trace this radioactive material back to its source in Japan could have implications for seafood monitoring methods in the future.

Dr. Michael Harbut, director of the Environmental Cancer Program at Wayne State University's Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, agreed that the findings are no cause for panic. But he said that the finding that tuna and migratory food animals could carry this radioactive material so far across the ocean deserves consideration. "In general, when you hear the word 'radiation' at all, it's cause for some alarm, and I agree always a cause for significant attention." Harbut, who described himself as a physician, scientist and "guy who likes sushi," added that while the levels of radiation found should not be seen as a direct threat to human health, scientists should focus their efforts on how this extra little bit of contamination fits into the bigger picture of food safety. "For somebody to say this is an immediate threat to large numbers of humans and their health is irresponsible," Harbut said. "We don't see people dying left and right all over the West Coast from radiation poisoning.

But to say this is nothing to worry about is equally irresponsible, because you have radioactive material ingested by fish, which is in turn being eaten by people." For now, the findings may be most important as a demonstration of how migratory food animals connect different areas of the globe - and how an event in one part of the world can affect food animals in an entirely different region. "[The findings] should be of value to both environmental studies of the marine ecosystem and to ensure that the public is not exposed to seafood contaminated with significant levels of marine radioactivity," Jorgensen said. Harbut said that the next step is for governments to learn more about this issue and act appropriately to ensure the seafood safety. "I think that the appropriate government agencies have to appoint appropriately trained people to give the public an honest assessment," Harbut said. "Not something tailor made for ignorance, like 'This will definitely kill you,' or 'This poses absolutely no risk to human health.'