Beer and Radiation

In early 1955, the US Government conducted a series of nuclear test explosions as part of a project named Operation Teapot.

One of the purposes of this, was to help establish military tactics for ground forces in nuclear battlefield – and part of that included survivability, thus Project 32.2a: The Effect of Nuclear Explosions on Commercially Packaged Beverages.

Buy setting various beverages throughout the blast area (in basements, exposed and buried), they wished to learn what could survive as a viable source of fluids for human consumption in the event of a nuclear blast.

Interestingly, aside from physical damage – Canned/Bottled Sodas and Beers faired well and are (reasonably) safe to use as an alternate hydration source.

I will admit – this story has made its rounds quite a bit lately, so I almost didn’t write about it due to media saturation…..but, Debi sent me some interesting information that somewhat ties to it, and it is so seldom she submits to the blog, that I knew I had to put everything else out there.

From Debi -

Food

Every food has some small amount of radioactivity in it. The common radionuclides in food are potassium 40 (⁴⁰K), radium 226 (²²⁶Ra) and uranium 238 (²³⁸U) and the associated progeny. Here is a table of some of the common foods and their levels of ⁴⁰K and ²²⁶Ra.

Natural Radioactivity in Food

Food	40K pCi/kg	226Ra pCi/kg
Banana	3,520	1
Brazil Nuts	5,600	1,000-7,000
Carrot	3,400	0.6-2
White Potatoes	3,400	1-2.5
Beer	390	---
Red Meat	3,000	0.5
Lima Bean raw	4,640	2-5
Drinking water	---	0-0.17

Ref: Handbook of Radiation Measurement and Protection, Brodsky, A. CRC Press 1978 and Environmental Radioactivity from Natural, Industrial and Military Sources, Eisenbud, M and Gesell T. Academic Press, Inc. 1997.

So there you have it folks – when the Shit Hits the Fan…..stock up on Beer, its the healthier alternative.