Radiation safety

Even your avocados are radioactive

Fact: The average American receives a radiation dose of about 6,200 microgray every year.

Before you go running into the wilderness to escape the threat of a radioactive existence, you should know two things.

1. A 6,200 microgray dose of radiation is actually pretty harmless.
2. Even if you take off into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, sleep on the dirt, and eat a diet of wild bananas, nuts, and avocados, you’ll still be exposed to a small dose of radiation every day.

In fact, as I previously wrote in an article for Symmetry magazine, even your own body produces radioactivity. In one year, you receive a 400 microgray dose from the radioactivity coming from inside of you — as much radiation as you'd get from four chest X-rays. And for every eight hours you spend sleeping next to someone, your radiation dose level can go up 20 microgray.

Many of the foods you eat, beverages you drink, and even the air you breathe contain radionuclides such as Potassium-40 and Carbon-14. They are incorporated into your molecules and eventually decay and produce radiation in your body.