Japanese Swap Fish for Burgers, Soy Milk on Radiation Contamination Fears

[jpak]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-24/japanese-swap-fish-for-burgers-soy-milk-on-radiation-contamination-fears.html

Namiko Murata no longer gives her three children their favorite salmon, saury and mackerel for dinner.

“I’m really paying attention to food because of the radiation problems,” said Murata as she waited in line at a Tokyo supermarket. “We gave up eating fish even though my family likes it very much. Now, for protein, we drink three cups of soy milk a day.”

The detection of cobalt, iodine and cesium in the sea near the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant north of Tokyo this week hurt fish sales in the world’s second-biggest seafood market. Shoppers ignored reassurances their food and water were safe and countries from Australia to the U.S. restricted Japan food imports. The World Health Organization said fears of radioactive contamination may be unwarranted.

Ryoko Mizumoto, a 27-year-old mother of two, said she stopped buying dried Shirasu fish and horse mackerel. “I gave up buying maritime products and started buying cheap meat,” she said while waiting to buy bottled water at one of Seven & I Holdings Co.’s Ito-Yokado stores in Tokyo. “I make hamburger steak to replace the fish.”

<much more>

[dkf]

1. Damn I love fish.

Am I going to have to stop soon? How do we know where our fish have been?

[Kolesar]

3. Yeah, I just had a piece of salmon with dinner

The Alaskan fishery will be fine. This is a sad story. Fish is the cuisine and culture of an island nation.

[dkf]

4. The sushi bars were having shortages because of what is happening in Japan.

That tells me we do get fish from there and I have to be careful from now on.

[caraher]

2. They really need to do some good testing

It's not obvious which food strategies are genuinely protective unless there's some transparent monitoring of a wide range of food products. It's hard enough to know there's a certain concentration of a particular radionuclide in the air, water or on the soil somewhere; but how that may accumulate within the food chain is even harder to discern!