Japan: Highly contaminated barley and wheat are coming to market
Two of the most basic ingredients, barley and wheat are highly contaminated and distributed to everyday supermarkets.Though Japanese barley and wheat don’t have price competitive power, we need to check the exporting volume of Japanese contaminated products and to where. On this article, I will only report the contamination situation of them.
In July of 2011, Ibaraki prefecture measured high level of cesium from their barley. However because the safety limit of food was 500 Bq/Kg at that time, they were let to the market.
(Ibaraki prefecture is the third largest producing area of barley in Japan.(7.9%, 2005) )
Highest readings.
Sample 1
Sample taken : 6/20 ~ 7/4/2011
Measurement data : 7/8/2011
Location : Hitachinaka city
Cesium : 460 Bq/Kg
Sample 2
Sample taken : 6/20 ~ 7/4/2011
Measurement data : 7/8/2011
Location : Hitachinaka city
Cesium : 340 Bq/Kg
Barley can be used for barley tea of this year. On 8/12/2012, a media writer, Chidai measured 19.89 Bq/Kg from tea bags of barley tea.
On 7/11/2012, he also measured 16.65 Bq/Kg of cesium from Japanese wheat. Contaminated ingredients are already processed for variety of food.
Original story with photos of geiger counter readings and links to Japanese sources: http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/08/hi...he-market/
