[ RadSafe ] Radioactive coffee? .....NORM ? Activity in tea, rice, milk etc

[parthasarathy k s]

Friends,

I do not know of any measurements of radioactivity in coffee. Several decades ago, a group of scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai,  measured K-40 in various items. The following table gives some of the values:


Radioactivity in Bq /kg


Potassium-40 in foodstuffs 


      

    
    
      





      





    
    
      Rice 

      
Leafy vegetables 

      
Brinjal

      
Tapioca 

      
Beetroot 

      
Carrot 

      
Tea 

      
Milk

      

      40-90

      
80-220 

      
90-140 

      
85-120 

      
90-120 

      
60-120 

      
450-1020 

      
40

      

This table is extracted from an article I wrote for the "Nuclear India", a publication from the Department of Atomic Energy
The URL for the issue of Nuclear India is

http://www.dae.gov.in/ni/ni0602/ni0602.htm

When the controversy on alleged  import of dairy products started,. one donor country reportedly threatened  Bangladesh that they will not buy tea from it because it contains K-40!

This table and the process by which the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board arrived at the " Permissible levels of Radionuclides in Food items" became a subject of judicial scrutiny initially at the High Court of  Bombay and later by the Supreme court of India.

Surprisingly I have not seen the values for coffee.

K.S.Parthasarathy








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