Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after explosion????

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Mar 21st, '11, 03:20
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by Fireflower » Mar 21st, '11, 03:20

JBaymore wrote:
Fireflower wrote:The department said the radiation, detected only on the surface of the beans, was well below Taiwan's legal limit and not harmful to human health."
i know, i was just posting that maybe the situation in any case is not absolutely ok also in uji.
i was reading today that maybe the situation about food in japan is worst than it was thinkable.
i hope very much that evrything will be normal because i cannot imagine not to buy sencha!
and i think that there will be no problem, but befre buying i want to have all the insurances that everything is in order.

Mar 21st, '11, 18:52
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by zeto » Mar 21st, '11, 18:52

I was in contact with Rishi since they are located in my home town, and their representative stated that they will be providing testing, but was unsure of the method or format that it will be available to the public.

So basically the distributors are aware of the potential for problems and some are going to take steps to ensure that material is safe. I would suggest that everyone contact their favorite distributor and ask them the same questions.

Any distributor that is unwilling to do quantitative testing is not someone I think people should be purchasing from as they clearly would not have your best interest in mind. Fact is that basically everywhere is going to have elevated levels of radioactive materials, but the question is how much? Plant selective uptake can aggregate such materials in much higher quantities (eg 5ppt in soil but 500 ppt in plants) so it's vital to test the plants.

Mar 29th, '11, 13:58
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by Elle » Mar 29th, '11, 13:58

To give you an idea of what levels of radiation we're actualy talking about here: http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/

In context, although it's "x times higher than normal" it's still not that much.

Full disclosure: I do have a third or fourth degree connection between my paycheck and the nuclear industry (I'm sysadmin to a couple guys currently working on software for them). The upside is that they're working with people who are serious experts and so some of the chatter about Fukishima filters down to me. ;) Their opinion is that so far the Japanese have been acting correctly so far as keeping this from turning into a more serious disaster.

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Mar 29th, '11, 15:50
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by teaisme » Mar 29th, '11, 15:50

good intro to radiation exposure thanks!

Mar 31st, '11, 04:58
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by a.serrao » Mar 31st, '11, 04:58

Problem is (at least in Italy, where I live): officially the Public Health Ministry has enforced test for radionuclides for all Japanese food shipping that is not accompanied with a certificate that states it's packaging date before 11th March.
So, if the vendor doesn't want hassles he/she should request such certificate from the MAFF of Japan. This certificate should also asses that the radioactivity is below safe levels.

This is obviously feasible for large imports but practically impossible for single orders.

Apr 3rd, '11, 05:20
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by Aleksei » Apr 3rd, '11, 05:20

entropyembrace wrote:There was no nuclear explosion and there will not be a nuclear explosion at the Fukushima reactors in Japan.

The explosions you saw on TV were caused by super heated coolant water releasing hydrogen gas which is highly combustable...but certainly not nuclear.

The nuclear fuel did not explode and it will not explode...the control rods which automatically activated when the earthquake was detected functioned properly and shut down the reactors.

What happened was the tsunami destroyed all sources of backup power for the coolant pumps and a nuclear reactor is still very hot after it´s shut down and requires constant coolong. There was some worry that the uranium fuel would melt the steel containment vessel and escape for a few days but that didn´t happen...and with workers at the site improving cooling steadily for the past few days that won´t happen either.

It did meltdown, and sadly the workers that remained delayed the inevitable.

http://www.infowars.com/fukushima-nuke- ... -meltdown/

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Apr 3rd, '11, 07:04
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by Xell » Apr 3rd, '11, 07:04

Aleksei wrote: It did meltdown, and sadly the workers that remained delayed the inevitable.

http://www.infowars.com/fukushima-nuke- ... -meltdown/
Sorry to disappoint you, Fukushima is still really far from what happened at Chernobyl and hope it will stay this way. It's simply thought up by infowars.com, they want more traffic to their site, the more scary article, the more people will come...

Some facts that are released by official sources. Amount of plutonium released is really small and not dangerous to people yet and not far from power plant. Most biggest problem now is leaking radioactive water, they still can't stop it. Fuel rods are only partially damaged and they are fighting to prevent meltdown, for now they are still lucky.

Statistics from Chernobyl, where a lot of fuel was widely spread on huge territory. Most biggest damage to people in Chernobyl caused short living iodine, since government didn't take proper measures against protecting local people (only about 2 month later they gave iodine pills, it was already useless). About 0.5% of people under surveillance got thyroid cancer. There is no reported health problems from Cesium 132, 137. People who moved away got more health problems from stress, than those who stayed near contaminated land. This is statistic, it's hard to believe, but it's true (from a person, who worked with this for many years). People are often scared a lot more by things they can't see.

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Apr 4th, '11, 15:56
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by teaisme » Apr 4th, '11, 15:56

what would you say the prognosis is ?

I hear from some people that the situation is not that bad right now, but it will definitely get much worse since they have no real way of cooling it down.

Are those 50 workers still there? Someone told me they are all gone now, basically no one working there now since it would be suicide. Is this true?

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Apr 5th, '11, 23:46
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by fire_snake » Apr 5th, '11, 23:46

Well my Gyokuro arrived today. :D

Point of departure: Nagasaki, Japan

Date of departure: March 21

Destination: Ontario, Canada

Date of arrival: April 5

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Apr 6th, '11, 06:34
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by mikkelrl » Apr 6th, '11, 06:34

Does anyone know anything about the effect of radiation on the tea harvest in China? This might be an off question, but I do believe heightened radiation levels have been found in eastern China.

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Apr 6th, '11, 06:52
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by Xell » Apr 6th, '11, 06:52

mikkelrl wrote:Does anyone know anything about the effect of radiation on the tea harvest in China? This might be an off question, but I do believe heightened radiation levels have been found in eastern China.
Nothing dangerous for sure, you have to worry more what they used to keep their plants away from harmful insects and sickness. Regarding tea nothing to worry about, even in Japan.

Bad news, I didn't see details, but person with radioactive hygiene knowledge saying that seafood near Fukushima is a real danger for Japanese people and better to avoid it, until things will be sorted out. No details on what actually flowing out with contaminated water :( Good news, it will be impossible to hide if something dangerous will actually appear in seafood.

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Apr 6th, '11, 08:39
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by JBaymore » Apr 6th, '11, 08:39

mikkelrl wrote: .........but I do believe heightened radiation levels have been found in eastern China.
Heightened radiation levels will likely be detected just about everywhere in the world. The "fallout" (no pun intended) from the s0-called "Cold War Period" is that the world has amazingly sensitive radiation monitoring equipment developed. So we can detect almost infitessimal levels of radiation.

The issues healthwise is not that increased radiation has been detected.... it is if that level poses any significant hazards. Every one of us on the planet is exposed to radiation every day. Some more than others. Here in New Hampshire in the USA we all live on a big block of granite. Radioactive decay in that rock raises the level of our radiation exposure over that of other areas of the northeast.

So far, outside of a narrow spectrum of places actually IN Japan and relatively near the stricken plant...... levels that are significant enough to be of real concern have not been the case.

Simply saying the word "radiation" induces a certain level of anxiety and even mass hysteria......... another likely "fallout" of the Cold War Period.

best,

............john
Last edited by JBaymore on Apr 6th, '11, 17:22, edited 1 time in total.

Apr 6th, '11, 16:15
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by a.serrao » Apr 6th, '11, 16:15

Meanwhile India has enforced a TOTAL stop to import for japanese food.

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Apr 7th, '11, 03:23
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by Kevangogh » Apr 7th, '11, 03:23

It was already very hard to send tea to India, which is why my company refused to accept India orders long before the recent events.

BTW, we successfully shipped green tea to Italy this week via EMS, so from Kyoto at least, it's not a problem.

Apr 7th, '11, 05:15
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Re: Food Safety of 2011 Japanese Tea after Nuclear explosion????

by a.serrao » Apr 7th, '11, 05:15

Kevangogh wrote:It was already very hard to send tea to India, which is why my company refused to accept India orders long before the recent events.

BTW, we successfully shipped green tea to Italy this week via EMS, so from Kyoto at least, it's not a problem.
Great Kevin!
What a wonderful news!
Looking forward to order some, maybe sincha this year.
Thanks again for the effort you put in this work.

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