Is red meat radioactive?

Other foods are radioactive as well. Carrots, white potatoes, red meat, and lima beans all contain roughly the same amount of potassium per kilogram -- and thus radiation -- as bananas. However, all of these foods pale in comparison to the mighty Brazil nut.
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Which food is the most radioactive?

Brazil nuts are the most radioactive everyday food. However, large quantities of Brazil nuts, lima beans, and bananas all can set off radiation detectors when they pass through shipping. The radiation dose from eating one banana is calculated at 107 Sievert or 0.1 microSieverts.
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Why is red meat radioactive?

Red meat contains appreciable amounts of potassium, and thus potassium-40. Your steak or burger glows to the tune of about 3,000 pCi/kilogram. Meat is also high in protein and iron. The high amount of saturated fat in red meat presents more of a health risk than the radiation level.
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Is the food we eat radioactive?

The food we eat is lightly radioactive, as we can see from the levels measured in various different foodstuffs. Activities of several hundred becquerels (Bq) per kilogram or litre may seem high, but the bequerel is a very small unit : the body of a 70kg man has a natural activity of 8000 Bq.
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What type of food has radioactive?

The most well known examples of naturally-occurring radionuclides in foods are bananas and Brazil nuts. Bananas have naturally high-levels of potassium and a small fraction of all potassium is radioactive. Each banana can emit . 01 millirem (0.1 microsieverts) of radiation.
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How radioactive are bananas and other radioactive foods?



Are avocados radioactive?

The researchers used a portable gamma radiation meter to measure the external gamma radiation emitted in a North Carolina home. The radiation was measured in microgray per hour (μGy/hr). Avocados, for example, gave off 0.16 μGy/hr of gamma radiation – slightly less than the 0.17 μGy/hr emitted by a banana.
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Is broccoli radioactive?

Broccoli is known to have a low level of natural radiation. It isn't dangerously radioactive, and no one is going to die from the imported legume, unless the salad chef has something up his sleeve.
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Why are Brazil nuts so radioactive?

It is not true, as is sometimes thought, that the high concentration of radium in Brazil nuts is due to elevated levels of the uranium and/or thorium series in the soil in which the tree grows. The accumulation of the radium (and barium) is due to the very extensive root system of the tree.
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What is the most radioactive thing on earth?

The Most Radioactive Places on Earth
  • Uranium: 4.5 billion years.
  • Plutonium 239: 24,300 years.
  • Plutonium 238: 87.7 years.
  • Cesium 137: 30.2 years.
  • Strontium-90: 28-years.
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Does eating a banana cause radiation?

Some potassium is always taken in via the diet, and some is always excreted, meaning that there is no buildup of radioactive potassium. So, while bananas are indeed radioactive, the dose of radioactivity they deliver does not pose a risk.
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How many bananas does it take to make a nuclear bomb?

Comparing this to the 3520 picocuries per kg for a banana gives us the mass of bananas required to equal the radioactivity of one Little Boy: So approximately 38788 metric tons of banana to equal the radioactivity of one Little Boy.
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How many bananas does it take to cause radiation poisoning?

Yes, bananas are radioactive, but so are you. Yes, you will certainly die from radiation poisoning if you are able to eat 10,000,000 bananas at once. You may also witness chronic symptoms if you eat 274 bananas a day for seven years.
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What foods contain uranium?

Microgram amounts of uranium are also present in beef, poultry, eggs, fish, shellfish, and milk. Root vegetables, such as beets and potatoes, tend to have more uranium than other foods.
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Are sweet potatoes radioactive?

Mr Pipat said the sweet potatoes were found to contain Iodine-131, also known as radioiodine. Radioiodine has a half-life decay of about eight days. Although the contamination amount was still under the harmful level set by the World Health Organisation at 100 Bq/kg, the potatoes would be destroyed, he said.
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What everyday things are radioactive?

Is Anything We Use in Everyday Life Radioactive?*
  • Smoke Detectors. Most residential smoke detectors contain a low-activity americium-241 source. ...
  • Watches and Clocks. ...
  • Ceramics. ...
  • Glass. ...
  • Fertilizer. ...
  • Food. ...
  • Gas Lantern Mantles. ...
  • Antique Radioactive Curative Claims.
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Does alcohol have radiation?

Natural alcohol gets its carbon from plants; the plants got the carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is radioactive because of the continued bombardment of cosmic rays – particles coming from space that collide with nitrogen molecules and turn it into C-14, radiocarbon.
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Is Hiroshima still radioactive?

Is there still radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today is on a par with the extremely low levels of background radiation (natural radioactivity) present anywhere on Earth. It has no effect on human bodies.
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What country has the most radiation?

Below are the ten most radioactive places on earth, listed in no particular order.
  • Goias, Brazil.
  • The Somali Coast. ...
  • Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan. ...
  • Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia. ...
  • Hanford, USA. ...
  • Chernobyl, Ukraine. ...
  • The Polygon, Kazakhstan. ...
  • Fukushima, Japan. ...
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What city has the most radiation?

On the coast of the Caspian Sea, the city of Ramsar, Iran has such high natural background radiation levels that scientists have recommended that the 32,000 residents relocate. Its neighbourhood of Talesh Mahalleh, the most naturally radioactive inhabited area in the world, is under long-term study.
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Are cigarettes radioactive?

However, few people know that tobacco also contains radioactive materials: polonium-210 and lead-210. Together, the toxic and radioactive substances in cigarettes harm smokers. They also harm people exposed to secondhand smoke.
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Does water carry radiation?

Minute traces of radioactivity are normally found in all drinking water. The concentration and composition of these radioactive constituents vary from place to place, depending principally on the radiochemical composition of the soil and rock strata through which the raw water may have passed.
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Do you get radiation from flying?

We are exposed to low levels of radiation when we fly. You would be exposed to about 0.035 mSv (3.5 mrem) of cosmic radiation if you were to fly within the United States from the east coast to the west coast. This amount of radiation is less than the amount of radiation we receive from one chest x-ray.
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Is the human body radioactive?

Yes, our bodies are naturally radioactive, because we eat, drink, and breathe radioactive substances that are naturally present in the environment. These substances are absorbed by our bodies, into our tissues, organs, and bones, and are constantly replenished by ingestion and inhalation.
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Do rocks give off radiation?

Essentially all rocks exhibit a low-level of natural radioactivity that is due to the decay of radionuclides that are typically present in minute quantities (e.g., parts per million).
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