Tips for Avoiding Radiation in Daily Life

As a parent of small children, I am especially concerned about radioactive particle contamination in the atmosphere from Fukushima. Unless you have been carefully following various online reports, you may wonder why I am concerned about radiation since I am living in Florida and not Japan. Florida had the highest radioactive Iodine levels in the US one month after the Fukushima reactor accident. California and Washington had very high levels of radiation reported also. These videos show videos from EnviroReporter's youtube stream. The first shows his test results from his California HEPA filters and the 2nd shows Michigan Rain water test results.



Why is radiation from Fukushima effecting the US? In addition radioactive particle release from the initial accident, the Japanese government has ordered the burning of 500,000 tons of radioactive to continue through 2014. The United States is directly down wind of Japan via the Jet Stream which carries air and rain water toward us rapidly.

Hopefully now you have enough information to see where I'm coming from and you can follow up and do a little more research on your own by following the embedded links in this post. I am still learning, but I would like to share what I have found so far regarding personal protection. If you have other ideas, or if I have left something out, please feel welcome to leave comments.

Tips for Avoiding Radiation:

~ Use and umbrella if you have to go out in the rain or just stay out of direct contact with the rain.
~ Leave your shoes outside when you go in the house.
~ Avoid tuna and other Pacific Sea Foods
~ Avoid outdoor grown mushrooms which accumulate radioactivity
~ Invest in a HEPA filter for your home. If you have a vacuum cleaner, make sure that it has a HEPA filter also.
~ Iodine supplementation is suggested for preventing radioactive Iodine uptake. Some people suggest seaweed as a source or Iodine. I think this is probably ok considering the half life of radioactive Iodine is about 8 days, but I am not sure given the current state of the oceans. Other people say to avoid the seaweed due to ocean contamination completely. What do you think?
~ To help prevent uptake of radioactive Strontium to the bones, take a Calium-Magnesium Vitamin supplement. This is even more important than Iodine supplementation, because radioactive Cesium has an exceptionally long half life.
~ From the Combating Radiation forum: "Soak all greens and vegetables or fruit that cannot be peeled in a mixture of 4 ounces of baking soda per gallon for at least 20 minutes. You can also scrub foods with baking soda and a damp sponge (use rubber gloves if your food is dusty from fallout and avoid breathing the dust). Baking soda absorbs uranium and some other radioactive particles very well"
~ On your body, baking soda and Bentonite clay can be used externally to bind many radioactive particles. Food grade bentonite can also be used in small amounts internally. Baking soda can be used in bath salt recipes or as a body scrub with 1 part baking soda, 1 part base oil such as Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Jojoba, Grapeseed oil, etc.

Activated Charcoal is another substance which is capable of binding radioactive particles. Zeolite, also known as Clinoptilolite is used specifically for cleaning up nuclear waste.

What about radiation concerns for gardening and wild harvesting and processing herbs? I have already started taking steps in my garden to prevent soil to plant transmission of radioactive particles. I will be make a separate post for avoiding radiation in the garden soon.