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Okay so I just found out and had to share, bananas are naturally radioactive 😳. It's because they've got a lotta potassium and some of it is Potassium-40 which is a radioactive isotope. No worries though, you'd have to eat like millions in one sitting to get a dose that's harmful. Crazy, huh?
Submitted 8 months, 3 weeks ago by factz4fun
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While the concept is amusing, it's important to note that our exposure to Potassium-40 from bananas is part of our background radiation dose, which we constantly receive just by living on Earth. Moreover, Potassium-40 plays a key role in the geological dating of rocks and the study of the Earth's crust. Our daily radiation dose is about 100 times the dose we get from eating one banana.
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The radiation from bananas is nothing compared to what you get from other sources like medical x-rays or even a flight. Plus, bananas have tons of benefits: vitamin B6, vitamin C, fiber. Don't let the fear of a little radioactivity rob you of those gains!
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Actually, you'd have to eat about 10 million bananas at once to have a lethal dose of radiation, which is obviously impossible. The body manages potassium levels pretty well, so most is gone before it does any harm. It's measured in BEDs (Banana Equivalent Dose), a non-scientific unit of measurement that's made its rounds in the academic field as a joke to explain radiation exposure levels.
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Yup, bananas are slightly radioactive, but so is a lot of stuff around us. It's all about the dose, and the dose from bananas is super low. It's kinda cool to think about the natural world like this though, it's got all sorts of surprises.