Sushi
I love sushi. I love the flavor, the texture, even the way the wasabi burns my sinuses when I use too much. But in the wake of this Nuclear Reactor problem in Japan, I’m officially taking a break from Sushi for the next 1 Million Years. I don’t really care what official news sources have to say about this issue. Water is a very simple. If you dump stuff in it, the stuff gets pretty much EVERYWHERE. Honestly, I already knew sushi had tons of parasites in it from being uncooked. Even the cleanest and most skilled sushi chef can’t get rid of the tiny parasites in sushi. I understand that, and I used to eat it anyway because I simply didn’t mind being a portable home to more critter friends. But the idea of eating uncooked fish that is loaded with parasites AND radiation is a little too much of a mouthful. Here’s the best part, imagine going to a sushi bar and asking the chef if his fish was from waters that were near Japanese radiation. Can you guess what he will say? I’m guessing he is going to say whatever he needs to say to get you ordering that Maguro.
So the next time I go to a sushi bar with friends or family, I’m sticking to the Teriyaki Kobe Beef Steaks, or the Chicken. But when I order the beef, I’m going to make sure it is the substitute Angus Style Kobe Beef that is made in America. No way am I going to eat some irradiated cow fat.
Now you may be reading this and be thinking, “This guy is a total jerk!” And that’s partially true. But I would be a much bigger jerk if I did not eat the Sushi for this very reason and DID NOT call my shots. So no one will able to complain years down the line, when sushi lovers’ parasites have mutated via radiation to turn them into the villains from Stargate SG-1.
Do you want to know what showed up when I searched: “Is sushi from Japan after the tsunami and radiation safe to eat?” As of one minute ago, (10:24 PM, March 17th, 2011) the searches on google served zero convincing articles that answered that question.
Let’s talk a bit more about how water works. When there is an ocean with currents and temperature changes, people tend to think that the ocean currents are very slow. But ocean currents are capable of traveling very fast, sometimes as fast or faster than a cruise ship. It all really depends on the specific ocean current and the time of year, and whether or not it is El-Nino.
Also, this doesn’t even factor in the life-cycle and eating habits of fish and sea mammals. If you have ever studied bio-contagion or pollution transmission through the food chain, you’d know that pollutants build up to dangerous levels the larger the fish is, or the larger the mammal is on the food chain. So a big fish that eats a lot of smaller fish that are polluted with radiation is going to have even more radiation in it. HERE’s a link that talks about pollution, but I don’t think it takes a huge stretch of the imagination to apply this to radiation.
One way to look at the situation is that if scientists still have a hard time figuring out where to put radioactive material in order to “dispose” or “recycle” the stuff. And if quite literally, the material is supposed to sealed away and burying underground for thousands of years, then it is a safe bet that the radiation is going to stay in the bio-organisms that are around the Nuclear Disaster site of Japan. Unfortunately, fish and plants are all interconnected, so I seriously doubt that there is anything anyone can do to stop the spread of these pollutants around the ocean.
Honestly, I doubt anyone will be able to avoid the radiation completely. This is because radioactive material is being doused in ocean water in order to cool the stuff down. So the sea-water is turning into steam that is at least partially filled with radiation.
So I’m just trying to avoid eating food that I don’t want to regret.
-Tyler