OT: brazil nuts in shells

Anyone know why brazil nuts in shells have reappeared in the supermarkets ? I know they were "banned" due to carcinogenic moulds on the shells.

Reply to
sm_jamieson
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And being radioactive ?

Reply to
Jethro

Brazil nuts, avocados and bananas are about the most radioactive foods because they all concentrate potassium and one isotope is very weakly radioactive. See banana equivalent dose (tongue slightly in cheek)...

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K40 present at ~0.01% has a half life of around a billion years.

Seaweed collected from near Sellafield, formerly Winscale, formerly Calder Hall is probably a lot more dodgy in this respect. Renaming ceremonies follow each nuclear MFU.

Reply to
Martin Brown

Windscale, not Winscale...

Everything with carbon from CO2 absorption is weakly radioactive too. Like our bodies and all vegetables and plants. C14 is continuously made by cosmic rays.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Also, Brasil nuts contain about 1000x as much Radium per gram as other foods do.

Reply to
RobertL

It was stated on QI that a pocketful of Brazil nuts would trigger a leak detector at a nuclear power station ...

Reply to
Jethro

Time to shoot those Brazilian nuts.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

They were not banned, but it became compulsory to test them for the toxin produced by the mould, which priced them off the market. Presumably, the economics have changed in the six years or so since that happened.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

I know that consumption of Brazil nuts is an effective way of increasing selenium intake [3]. And that at least some people who feel the need to do so would probably prefer them in shell so they are less likely to have been treated with anything.

And a couple Brazil nuts is a cheaper way of getting adequate selenium [1] that buying the tomatoes fed with selenium [2] that M&S have been selling this year.

[1] Actually two kernels can have more selenium than you need. [2] You would actually have to eat quite a lot of these tomatoes to get sufficient selenium if i is your only source. [3] Selenium is used in the body to form three selenoproteins known to their friends as D1, D2 and D3.
Reply to
polygonum

On 16/11/2011 19:26, polygonum wrote: ...

I prefer them treated with chocolate.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

So long as it is good quality dark chocolate, I absolutely agree. :-)

Reply to
polygonum

Remember Trevor McDoughnut (aka Lenny Henry) reading the news about 20 years ago:

"The Government has announced that Windscale is to be renamed Sellafield.... and also that nuclear radiation will now be known as 'magic moonbeams'..."

David

Reply to
Lobster

I'm not sure if that is correct, but an ordinary WW2 prismatic compass would.

When I did talks to the general public I used to monitor a box of ordinary potash fertiliser from a garden centre to show that this would be classed as "Nuclear Waste" and could not be transported off site, even to another nuclear facility, without fairly extensive paperwork.

Reply to
Newshound

Almost *anything* is better with chocolate.....

Reply to
Newshound

keep doing those talks.

Here's another headline for you

"Renewable energy linked to 3000 cancer deaths a year"

That being the death rate from skin cancer caused by exposure to solar radiation, the driver for all renewable energy. (I'll grant you that tidal and geothermal are classed as renewable, and only geothermal is [partly] nuclear in its original power source).

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

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