This Video Shows What Happens When Your Body Eats Radioactive Food
From Chernobyl to 2011's Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, nuclear accidents have massive consequences spanning decades.
While the immediate effects are well known and have been documented extensively over the last century, there are some side-effects of radiation contamination that humans haven't fully explored. For example, what happens if you ate radioactive food?
The answer might be less surprising than the public realizes, according to YouTube channel Life Noggin. A lot of the food available for public consumption is actually radioactive.
This is due to the ever-present nature of radiation and how it lingers and spreads in the most unexpected of places. It might be easy to blame nuclear spills for being the biggest culprits, but nuclear testing that discharges radioactive materials into the environment also plays a role.
Some foods are naturally prone to be radioactive. For example, bananas contain potassium-40. Brazil nuts found in most mixed nut blends have radiation levels over 1,000 times what can be found in other foods.
According to the Life Noggin team, however, it's important to separate the levels of radiation found in food with the level of radiation from nuclear fallout. So what happens if your body ate something with extremely high levels of radiation? Previous studies showed that mortality rates would skyrocket as would abnormality. Radium can enter the body if swallowed, enter the bloodstream and eat away at your skeletal structure.