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What would it take to convince you that seafood, rice and other food products from Fukushima Prefecture are safe to consume?

36 Comments

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If the Japanese health authorities certify that food from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island is also safe for consumption by the Japanese population -- and they encourage its consumption -- might convince me that they're not lying and downplaying the danger (again).

8 ( +10 / -2 )

I'll wait another 200 years before eating anything in that area. By then, the levels should be relatively small.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

I've already been buying peaches from Fukushima for the past two summers and I am prepared to buy seafood and rice if it will help local industries. I'm sure the radiation checks will be rigorous.

The problem is that many people are determined never to eat Fukushima products no matter how much testing is done. You could test products repeatedly by international authorities completely independent of TEPCO and the Japanese government and that still wouldn't be enough to convince some people. That's just being irrational.

-9 ( +5 / -14 )

Results of empirical testing is the best way to decide.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

If a neutral foreign health organization finds it safe to consume and their radiation measurement equates with that of Japanese health authority.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Decades long proper study of effect of radiation in food to humans. The study has a few groups of children age from 0 to 18, living within 60km and 200km of the nuclear plant. Half the children in each group will be fed food from around the corresponding area, the other half not from tohoku and kanto. The control group will be in hokkaido, kyushu, okinawa, strictly fed food not from tohoku and kanto area. Study will be conducted for their whole life. This will measure effect of air exposure and inner exposure. If I'm a scientist, I would never do such study. So, nothing will convince me of consuming food from fukushima.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Any hint that food from a foreign country has caused years of concern and suspicion from not just Japanese consumers but from Japanese. food safety authorities...American beef & Chinese gyoza are two examples. But when a major crisis occurs in Japan, everyone is encouraged to dispense with concerns and consume without a second thought. If a country (especially a neighboring one) had experienced an ongoing catastrophe comparable to Fukushima, would people in Japan even think about consuming food from anywhere in that country? Really?

No. Given the ongoing fabrications and then revelations about the conditions around the affected site, I will have an ongoing reluctance to consume produce from Fukushima. Living in Japan, I am sure that I am inadvertently consuming products that have found their way into the markets and food chain, but my suspicions about Fukushima goods are going to be high for the foreseeable future.

19 ( +19 / -0 )

It would take a smiling endorsement from a Japanese government figure, because they would never lie about anything related to radiation or Fukushima.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

I would be convinced if they finally stopped bleeding radioactive leaks into the ocean and secured the site... which TEPCO and Japanese government has been lying and under-admitting the entire time. The site needs to be given over to international commission of specialists.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Not until all the radiation gets cleaned up, the groundwater is pure, and the surrounding ocean is clean again...in other words: never!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

A label on every product with two bold figures for comparative purposes stating a) the result of a neutral independent radiation check, and b) (alongside this figure) the average radiation reading for a similar product from outside the Fukushima area.

The strongest enemy of this system will be invested market interests which try to water down the independent check requirement.

If such a robust system were in place, I could then make an informed choice at the check-out counter.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

As bass4 said, a couple of centuries.

The See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys who covered up Minamata are alive and well.

JA (Nokyo) can't be trusted, and the threat of ostracism of the courageous few, is overwhelming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlxTrs6XyUs

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Well, in a first step, I would need to be convinced about the sincerity of Japanese authority's effort to solve the plant problem. At this point, I think we get propaganda information while they just do nothing, hoping people won't react till the next election. Then if we can't trust about the radioactivity, I trust even less about the food.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I wouldn't touch anything that didn't come from a 100 yen food store.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Abe, Noda and the rest of the nuclear village liars, plus their children and grandchildren eating fish, rice and vegetables from the so-called "safe" areas just outside the evacuation zone for 5 years with no health effects.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

nothing at this stage

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It would take ALL alternative food sources in the world to dry up for me to consider eating Fukushima food.

Despite that, if they really wanted to convince me that their food was safe, they would need to allow several independent entities external to Japan (with no conflicting interests) to regularly assess food. These assessors would have to be allowed to indiscriminately choose which foods were tested, from where ever they liked (samples wouldn't be chosen by producers or others with vested interests). All results, whether they be good or bad would have to be made readily accessible online. The results should include what food was sampled and from where. These results would be published alongside comparisons of radiation levels found in foods from other places in the world.

After all that I still wouldn't eat the food. Why risk it when we have plentiful sources of safe food elsewhere? I would, however, lend a more sympathetic ear to arguments about whether the food was safe or not.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

What would it take to convince you that seafood, rice and other food products from Fukushima Prefecture are safe to consume?

The answer to your question JT is nothing. I simply will not knowingly ingest any food from Fukushima be it from the land or sea.

http://youtu.be/cBgdUHqAkOA

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Alzheimer's. Even then I'd likely not eat it.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

For starters Japan MUST map out the land & ocean areas where farming & fishing is permanently BANNED due to the accident.

Then after looking at it & agreeing it is reasonable(but of course this will NEVER happen), then with 3rd party checks in place that are beyond reproach(again this will never happen), then I will sit back & observe.

If I like what I see I might give products WELL AWAY from the nuke plant a shot!

Problem is I just cant see the J-govt having a hope in hell of implementing any such or similar systems, there is just too much incompetence & too much corruption & too many people believing they can go back to living close to the nukes, there is just way too much common sense missing from so many aspects of all this that it is impossible to accept anything the govt says or does

So end result is I wont knowing eat stuff from Fukushima, sorry the govt & tepco have messed things up so horribly that I can never trust them

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Nothing. Period. The government has their self to blame for it all. And yes, any HINT of an issue with something abroad it is banned. Japanese food?? Yes, buy and support the poor farmers. Whatever. Japan can kill itself but I won't play.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Proven zero cesium, zero strontium, zero plutonium, zero ...ium!

And stop this below 100bq it is safe. This has no meaning as it depends from the contaminant. For some it might be 500, for others 0!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Well, they could start by not "hiding" the "福島産" labelling - or making it purposely hard to find. Yes, this does happen.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

A time machine

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Seeing that scientists have to get rid of the famous poison-of-choice of the KGB, polonium-210, from sea food before testing for Fukushima isotopes I consider Fukushima products to be generally safe. It would however, be good to have a hot-spot survey to check if any excessive amounts of radioisotopes have gathered in any producing areas.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What gets me is that, some of these government officials still try to ease the publics concern that is really nothing to worry about. Seriously, how gullible do they think people really are? I want these people to man up and just say, this is a DEFCON 1 or something to that nature, they should relocate everyone, decommission the area, it's uninhabitable and will be for centuries, YES, do what you can to contain it, but after that and after everyone is relocated. Since the government lied oh, so many times (still lying) they should compensate the people that they gave hope to of ever moving back. I just feel sorry for these people and entire communities. Every one of these officials should go on an apology tour and step down willingly and honorably, but you know they won't. They go home with a nice check, roof over their heads, untainted food to eat and go on about their lives and all the while giving hope to people that really want to believe that their government has their best interests at heart. For if they did, they would have never even brought up the idea to grow rice in the area for Yoshinoya, once I heard that story, I knew, these people really don't care. Like I said, the people and elderly have to suffer for these clowns mistakes.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I would like to see Abe eat a Fukushima-only diet until the situation is actually "under control" (meaning no more groundwater leaking, ocean dumping, etc.) and then have the food tested by a foreign organization with nothing to lose from the results making them more trustworthy than any organization in Japan.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

independent verification.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@Brainiac

I've already been buying peaches from Fukushima for the past two summers and I am prepared to buy seafood and rice if it will help local industries. I'm sure the radiation checks will be rigorous. The problem is that many people are determined never to eat Fukushima products no matter how much testing is done. You could test products repeatedly by international authorities completely independent of TEPCO and the Japanese government and that still wouldn't be enough to convince some people. That's just being irrational.

It's ironic that so many people "feel so sorry" for the people in Fukushima but most wouldn't have a clue what's safe to eat or not, let alone go out of their way to buy products to help the local industry.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Labels saying that the produce was not grown, farmed or caught in the Fukushima area -- but that's probably already happening

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Probably nothing in my lifetime.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This question reminds me of the time in the UK during the BSE crisis that the then Agriculture Minister tried to convince everyone beef was safe by feeding his 5 year old grand daughter a burger live on national television. She took one bite, grimaced, yelled "URRRGH!" and spat it out!

Pretty much second what blvtzpk says.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

When every member of the Japanese government stays strictly only on Fukushima food diet for 6 months.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

That it is not from Fukushima.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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