Many of us have been immersed in the extraordinary television series Chernobyl, starring the unbeatable Jared Harris. So it is not trivial to ask something like What foods would become more radioactive as a result of exposure to radioactivity?
The easiest way to find out is to explore some studies carried out in the "city of survival", a fictional city built in the Nevada desert, United States, where hundreds of atomic bombs were detonated.
Be careful with cod and embrace frozen ones
He project 32.5, a fifteen-page report published in 1956, was intended to test the resistance of frozen foods to a nuclear explosion. To carry out the study, they were covered in ice and buried in shallow trenches, 387 and 838 meters, respectively, from the place where a 29 kiloton bomb was going to detonate, as well as other supplies were stored in freezers in homes. from the city of survival, 1.4 kilometers from ground zero.
29 kilotons, to give us an idea, is twice the power of Hiroshima. So it was more than enough to cover everything in radioactivity. But not all foods absorbed it equally, after waiting two and a half days before digging up the food, as explained Pierre Barthélémy in his book Improbable science experiments:
The loins of cod They turned out to be the most radioactive, ahead of peas. The strawberries did not present any abnormalities. (…) An analysis showed that the nutritional properties had not been diminished, except for a decrease in the vitamin B9 levels of the frozen French fries. A team of volunteers also ensured that in terms of taste, texture and appearance, there were no notable differences compared to the control foods.
And the food in the freezers? Well, they did not present any sign of radioactivity. However, the report warns that the consumption of foods exposed to radiation "should be avoided as much as possible during the first two weeks, except in cases of urgent need."
–
The news
After a nuclear explosion, these are the foods that become most radioactive
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.