Banana Equivalent Dose (BED)

Michael Blastland writes, for the BBC:

How much easier if our exposure to the hazards of radiation could all be reduced to . Actually, it can, sort of. Welcome to the Banana Equivalent Dose or BED.

Bananas are a natural source of radioactive isotopes. True, there’s not much in one banana. But enough, according to Nuclear Threat Initiative- a security-minded think tank – for a few bananas to trigger radiation sensors used at US ports to detect smuggled nuclear material.

The standard measure of the biological effect of radiation is the sievert. One sievert is a heck of a big dose, but one tenth of a millionth of a sievert, or 0.1 micro sieverts, is roughly the dose from eating one banana.

So we can use one banana as our basic unit and convert other radiation exposures to so many bananas….