Removal of Radiocæsium from Beef

Abstract

Two of the long half-life nuclides of major interest in food and feedstuffs which result from fall-out are radiostrontium and radiocæsium. Cæsium is almost always associated with the other alkali metals and particularly resembles potassium. Hood and Comar¹ demonstrated that ¹³⁷Cs is absorbed and distributed rapidly in the soft tissues and the body fluids, including milk. In distribution investigations, these authors found that the greatest accumulation of radiocæsium occurred in the muscles as compared with other body tissues. Ekman² reported that radiocæsium accumulated more rapidly in the physiologically active muscles than in inactive muscles; however, ultimately the inactive muscles were reported to have a higher content.