Olympic Organizer Wants To Feed Athletes Fukushima Produce

New submitter Grady Martin writes: Toshiaki Endo, Japan's government-appointed parliament member in charge of planning for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, has expressed hopes of supplying the Olympic/Paralympic village with foods grown in Fukushima [Google's autotranslation], stating, 'Using foods from Fukushima in the village is another possibility. I wish to strengthen ties with ground zero in numerous ways.' Would you eat it?

Comments

Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes I would.

This so called article is simply scaremongering of the highest order. You should be ashamed!

Re:Yes.

[Applehu Akbar]

Crops from this particular area are undoubtedly better tested than any other food in the world.

Re:Yes.

[Applehu Akbar]

100 becquerel for kg in the rice? Inasmuch as background is 4500 bq inside the human body, you're going to have to add some radium watch dial scrapings for flavor.

Re:Yes.

[AmiMoJo]

Reading comprehension failure. I didn't say that the equipment wasn't accurate, in fact I'm sure it is. I imagine it is properly calibrated and checked regularly. That's not the problem.

Sample size is an issue. If you test a large sample with a single detector it might give a low reading for say a palette of vegetables. The problem is that one vegetable might have a dangerous concentration of cesium, but it averages out over the palette. That's actually how the test is done by the way, it's not just speculation, and NHK demonstrated this failure mode is possible.

I prefer testing and proof over speculation and assumption.

This is a common mistake made by nuke fans. They think that because there is some equipment that checks fit some problem they can assume it is taken care of. In practice, it requires someone to design a test and others to carry it out correctly.

This ignores the team diet requirements:

[Elfich47]

Most competitors are on very regimented diets. The last thing they want to do is upset their digestive tracks in the days leading up to a major competition. Teams routinely bring their own food with them. This was a "story" during the Russian winter Olympics when the Russians tried to put a hold on Chobani yogurt that was coming in the country by the pallet (amoungst all the other food coming in). The news was trying to drum it up as a disaster (right next to the wild dogs wandering around in the hotels).

I expect to see the Japanese Olympic committee push the idea of Fukashema produce; the teams will mouth polite noises at the appropriate points - and then continue with the diets that have been developed and tracked for each team member.

As competitors are knocked out of competition you will see more variation and experimentation in their diets. Anyone that is still in competition will be adhering to their diets.