The REASON, that your fruit, like bananas, is irradiated now, is because it's GOOD for the fruit. It stops it from rotting. It does this because alpha radiation doesn't harm the fruit, but it DOES kill viruses and fungi and bacteria.

Bananas have set off radiation detectors at airports, because their detectors detect levels that could never harm any human being in any way.

http://www.omichron.com/plutoniumiscool.html

IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY THE SPAS OF EUROPE USED TO BOAST ABOUT HOW RADIOACTIVE THEIR WATERS WERE. THEY WERE ACTUALLY QUITE RIGHT TO DO SO. AT THAT TIME, THERE WERE ELIXIRS SOLD IN THE US CONTAINING ELEMENTS LIKE RADIUM. THEY WERE THE VIAGRA OF THEIR DAY. RADIUM AND SOME OTHER RADIOACTIVE ELEMENTS STIMULATE YOUR PITUITARY GLAND AND INCREASE YOUR VITALITY. UNFORTUNATELY THEY OVERDID IT AND SOME PEOPLE DEVELOPED OSTEOPOROSIS. THE SCANDAL THAT ENSUED LED TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FDA.

ONE FUN THING ABOUT PLUTONIUM, WHEN YOU HOLD A LUMP OF IT IN YOUR HAND IT FEELS ODDLY WARM. THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS EMITTING ALPHA PARTICLES ( JUST HELIUM NUCLEI ). THE ALPHA PARTICLES DON'T HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY TO PENETRATE THE LAYER OF DEAD SKIN ON THE SURFACE OF YOUR HAND, SO IT IS HARMLESS.

It is NOT radioactivity per se, that is harmful. Radiation can burn you just like intense sunlight, but you will recover. The toxicity of radiation is caused by the CHEMICAL PROPERTIES of the particular radioactive element.

Cesium is toxic, because it BEHAVES LIKE POTASSIUM, once it's inside your body. Radioactive iodine is dangerous, because of it's chemical properties, as iodine.

All these people who are afraid to go help those Japanese people because they might be a tiny, harmless dose of radiation are a disgrace. Some 50 year guy who could drop dead tomorrow of a heartattack, is gonna not help those people, for fear of a few microsieverts of radiation? My god, better to have your entire body burned in the core of the reactor than to bear the eternal shame of abandoning those people.