Japanese Dietary Habits and the Fall-out Problem

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Abstract
As data coming out from Japan on the level of contamination of food by radio-active fall-out from the nuclear weapon tests often differs remarkably from that obtained in other countries, an investigation was made to find the radio-ecological reason for it. We found less contribution of milk to total diet than European and American countries in Japan where various kinds of food of plant origin are contributing significantly and the level in the total diet only can be taken as standard because that in milk or in other food can not be a proportional to it. As more seasonal products are taken than continuous products in Japan, the mean storage time in diet is roughly measured as half a year. From the relation between the fall-out level on ground and in the diet, a rough measure to know about Sr-90 and Cs-137 level in the total diet was made using the accumulated ground deposit and the fall-rate in Tokyo. These differences between Japan and others are thought to be caused by the difference of usage of land surface for food production.

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