Bananas Are Radioactive
Monday August 11, 2008
 |
It's pretty easy to understand why tile, granite, and kitty litter are radioactive. They contain low levels of minerals that naturally decay. Bananas are radioactive for a similar reason. The fruit contains high levels of potassium. Radioactive K-40 has an isotopic abundance of 0.01% and a half-life of 1.25 billion years. The average banana contains around 450 mg of potassium and will experience about 14 decays each second. It's no big deal. You already have potassium in your body, 0.01% as K-40. You are fine. Your body can handle low levels of radioactivity. The element is essential for proper nutrition. If you have a banana in your car for your lunch you aren't going to set off a Geiger counter. If you carry a produce truck full of them, you might encounter some problems. Ditto for a truck of potatoes or potassium fertilizer.
I guess my point is that radiation is all around you. After I read the Newsweek article I clicked off-site for more information and I found concern (panic?) over bananas being radioactive. Are they radioactive? Kinda. If you set a banana on a detector you won't hear mad clicking. It won't glow in the dark when you turn out the lights. There is a perception that radiation is bad, bad, bad. It's just a part of life. Bricks are radioactive. Anything containing carbon (you) is slightly radioactive. Bananas are radioactive and it's no big thing. Well... except maybe to Homeland Security.
Comments
Oh, dear. One more thing I have to worry about…radioactive travel snacks!
Novel points about banana. But harmless doses
of radioactivity.
Thank You,
Rosario
so what do monkey have in them that there main food itself is banana’s and that they can have soo much of it and not increase there potassium value and get sick…and if they have any special thing, wouldnt it be wise to extract it from monkeys and use it as a medicine for people working in neuclear power plants or decay plants.
If bananas are radioactive then they should heat up the body very soon but even excessive eating doesn’t produce such condition.
It means they are harmless.
Actually, it is a misconception to think that monkeys or primates only eat bananas. They eat a variety of fruits and vegetables just like humans. So they would be no more radioactive than us in that regard.
I love Ur banana article of radioactive isotopes and also Ur reflection on radioactivity as part of almost all mineral containing substances.
Iam a 1/2 vegetarian and consume 3 bananas a day. What do U think???
Thanks a lot Mrs Helmenstine
Best Regards // George
Standard sillyness from the “YOUR GOING TO DIE” croud. The dose is the poison. If you don’t drink any water, you die. If you drink the a lake, you drown and die. If you get no radas from the sun, vitaima D deficency, if you are are in the sun all the time, Skin Cancer. Just don’t worry about it, death is just the perod of life.
so the half life is 1.25 billion years and decays 14 times a second?
are you sure you know what your talking about?
i like this banana thing and think that you are right and wrong. just because bananas have like 0.01% radioactivity doesn’t mean that they are radioactive
OVER AND OUT
BANANAS RULE THE WORLD
@joe: There are many, many, many, many, many molecules of potassium in 450 mg of potassium.
Yes — but so is just about ANY fruit or vegetable. They all contain Potassium, and a tiny fraction of all Potassium is radioactive. The amount of radioactivity is so small it is almost impossible to measure.