Mind Blowing Fact 3
🍌 Did You Know Bananas Are Radioactive?
Yep, your morning smoothie might be glowing—scientifically speaking, of course.
Bananas naturally contain potassium-40, a radioactive isotope of potassium. This means every banana gives off a tiny bit of radiation. But before you go tossing your fruit bowl, don’t worry—it’s completely harmless.
In fact, bananas are so famously radioactive that scientists came up with a tongue-in-cheek unit of measurement called the Banana Equivalent Dose (BED). One banana gives you about 0.1 microsieverts of radiation. For context, you’d get the same radiation dose just from taking a short flight. And to actually experience radiation sickness from bananas, you’d have to eat 10 million of them at once. Please don’t try that.
So next time someone accuses your diet of being boring, hit ’em with this nuclear nugget.
Source:
- U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Radiation in Everyday Life”
- Health Physics Society. “Are Bananas Radioactive?”
- Rohatgi, P.M. “The Banana Equivalent Dose – A General Overview”, Physics Education (2011)