A typical food line up since the quake (since some people asked me about this) :
We are now drinking only bottled water (from South Korea at present as its the cheapest). This includes making tea and coffee. I found 6x 2 liter bottles at our local megamart for only 400 yen (around 4 US dollars) so cheap.
There is also a filter on our kitchen tap and we use water from that #1 and then into deactivated charcoal filter Brita jug #2 (so double filtered) for cooking water to boil and cook food. De activated charcoal removes most heavy metals including some radionuclides.
We are buying meat products like pork and beef and chicken from Australia, Brazil and nearby Asian countries. These are the biggest importers to Japan in this area. No meat from Japan. Fish we have only bought from Russia/Alaska since the quake and canned from America and Thailand. No Japanese fish at all.
Fruit and vegetables we are buying from Kyushu (far south Japan) only OR frozen vegetables from other countries.
Milk and butter we are getting from Hokkaido (far north Japan). Cheese we are buying at the import food store from Holland and Australia.
Eggs from Aomori (far north).
With this plan (plan A =above and below) launched we hope to keep as safe as possible from radionuclides in food for the rest of the time that we have to be here. It's expensive but of course it is necessary we do this.This is what we can do and it feels good to cando :)
As far as rain goes, we are always using umbrellas and leaving coats and shoes at the door. If soil contains radionuclides you can bring these in on shoes. It's a great thing that nobody in Japan wears their shoes inside.
Washing dishes and hair and doing fish tanks I'm using rubbergloves, but always did that. The fish seem to be doing okay in the water so far..
For most people that live here and cannot leave (Japanese citizens and long term residents) sensible advice and caring advice about how we should protect ourselves and what we can do to minimise carcinogenic danger is far more helpful and productive than more and more scaremongering. There is actually plenty you can do to protect yourself. There are some farms here that are testing their soils daily and public awareness is increasing via word of mouth of where to buy what. Top Japanese nuclear scientists at Universities here, every bit as clued up as Western nuclear scientists (and to be differentiated from Japanese TEPCO nuclear business and govt) are working hard to get data together and share it and are testing soil and water and providing information to citizens when there are dangerous levels in any area. Radionuclides clump and are seldom spread out evenly. They are like dust and can be washed off the skin, we need to take showers morning and evening to rinse off possible particles if we have been outside with skin exposed. This is being very cautious but you just never know. We are told the air is quite safe here from these particles but really who can test each inch of rain and air.
The whole of Japan cannot relocate, we have to take action now to protect ourselves in small ways locally while supporting the teams at the nuke plant who are doing their best to shut the beast down as quickly and sucessfully as possible.
So with these measures underway I can feel a little safer and more confident that I can continue my work here that I love and the kids can be protected as best as possible. I need to keep working for a while because we have zero savings and I cannot just suddenly leave much as I would like to. I have to get some money saved for plan B. Tomorrow's scheduled conference with Sir JB and updated information generated from that is going to be key in mapping out that plan B.
Below is a map of radiation levels in the air (not nuclides...) today.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/radiation-levels.html
Sendai's 100km north background radiation level is lower than 100km south of the plant. Background radiation levels are being monitored daily by nuclear science professors like this man. Today's reading of O.O73 microsieverts per hour is within the yellow/safe range.
