Morgan Lindstead | November 4th, 2024
When we think of radiation, it often seems very distant or removed from us in our everyday lives. Our first thought may go to a nuclear reactor explosion like the famous Chernobyl explosion in 1986 or the resulting radiation from the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. However, it turns out that there is actually a small amount of radiation in one of our everyday food staples: bananas!
Bananas contain an essential nutrient called potassium that is important for proper nerve signaling, heart and muscle function, moving nutrients into cells, and moving waste products out of cells. A small portion of the potassium in bananas is the radioactive isotope potassium-40. When this isotope undergoes decay, it releases a small amount of radiation. But don’t worry — there’s no reason to change up your morning breakfast routine or throw out that tasty strawberry banana smoothie. The amount of radiation released is about 0.01 millirem per banana, which is a very small value. (For context, you would have to eat around 100 bananas to receive the same level of radiation you encounter naturally outside in the United States, or 100,000,000 bananas for the radiation dose to be fatal, with death resulting within two weeks.)
So what’s the point of talking about this if the amount of radiation exposure is so minimal? Well, we actually use this fun fact as a way to help others understand the concept of daily radiation exposure. It has even inspired the “banana equivalent dose” as a playful unit of measurement in radiation studies!
References
Potassium 40—An overview | ScienceDirect Topics. Retrieved November 3, 2024, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/nursing-and-health-professions/potassium-40US EPA, O. (2018, November 27). Natural Radioactivity in Food [Overviews and Factsheets]. https://www.epa.gov/radtown/natural-radioactivity-food