With the 4th of July coming up, 100% grass fed and grass finished beef is our risk mitigating choice for the grill.
We will cover this subject in more detail when we release our analysis of the nearly $2000 dollars worth of professional radiological laboratory tests we have had performed on the pre and post Fukushima beef samples. (Many thanks to those who stepped up and helped us fund this effort by using the DONATE button on our webpage; so far we have raised approximately $439 of donations to off set the lab costs ).
Pending the release of the tests performed on our own farmer's grass fed and well watered beef, we suggest reading these two Cold War era studies of the Cesium uptake of grass fed and grain fed beef.
http://jas.fass.org/content/29/5/695.short
The transfer coefficient of 137Cs from feed to meat was about twice as great for a high grain ration as for rations high in roughage or about 3.0% as compared to 1.5%.
Metabolism of Radioactive Cesium and Potassium by Dairy Cattle as Influenced by High and Low Forage Diets
The data also showed a less efficient transfer to milk with diets consisting predominantly of hay as compared with rations containing a high percentage of grain.
How much fallout on the grass or grain by location is more important than whether the feedstock to the cattle was grass or grain. Location is what matters, not whether it was simply grass or grain.
ReplyDeleteThe key is that grass fed vs grain is a risk mitigation choice people can make with the information they already have in hand; the research shows that the choice of grass fed cuts the exposure to Cs-137 in half.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the point you raise will be covered in our next video on the subject. Specifically, locations, farming practices, and other indicators that overall tend to reduce the risk. Of course, fallout can be spotty and localized, so there may be high risk locations even inside so called 'safer areas'. But even in those areas, selecting grass fed beef should reduce exposure by 1/2.
Please post rainout readings from Monday afternoon's rain storm.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all that you do.
Most of the rain missed our location; we did get a brief sprinkle, but did not have a chance to test it.
DeleteHowever, we are in the process of setting up an airborne monitoring system, and we may have captured some indoor air data. We will review that data as we get our outdoor system up and running.
Thnx for responding. I had no idea it missed you. It was a frog drowner in my area.
ReplyDeleteYour results here are surprising because I had heard from a number of sources last spring that, in the case of milk, organic milk is more likely to be contaminated than non-organic precisely because the cows are grazing on grass that is getting directly rained on. Perhaps the difference here is one of timing. In the first several weeks after an accident, it seems that the cows eating grass could be more apt to be contaminated than those eating grain because the grain they are eating might be grain that was already previously harvested and is stored in silos or bags by the time of the fallout. Perhaps your findings speak more to more on-going fallout conditions, when an entire grain harvest has been directly exposed along with the grass. But in the shorter term after a nuclear fallout event occurs, it still seems like it makes all the difference in the world precisely when the grain feed was harvested relative to the arrival of the fallout.
ReplyDeleteThere was an initial lag time as corn has a longer supply chain to make it through before it gets to the cow. But once at the cow, the studies show that cows uptake more cesium from eating corn than they do from eating grass.
DeleteTo figure out when the initial fallout contaminated corn most likely hit the market one would have to look at the harvest dates and corn prices. Farmers often store field corn and put it on the market when prices are the best for them. A corn commodities price chart should give a good idea when the fallout contaminated stuff hit the market