The main focus of the foodstuffs monitoring programme of STUK is to obtain information about the intake of radionuclides through ingestion for the purpose of estimating internal doses. Monitoring is carried out 1) for dairy milk, 2) for foodstuffs on the market and 3) for one day diet by analysing whole mixed diet samples obtained from institutional kitchens of large hospitals (all meals with bread and drinks consumed during one day are included in the samples). Monitoring of foodstuffs on the market covers meat, fish, vegetables, mushrooms and wild berries. For milk and one day diet activity concentrations of 137Cs and 90Sr are analysed, while foodstuffs on the market are analysed only for 137Cs. 137Cs contents in milk are nearly at the same level as before the Chernobyl accident. The concentrations of 137Cs and 90Sr in the daily diet are low, because the agricultural products used as raw material are nearly free of artificial radionuclides. The 137Cs contents in foodstuffs from food shops approximate to the results from the diet samples considering the reduction of radiocesium in cooking, and the minor proportion of wild foods in diets of institutional kitchens.
More than 1000 samples were analysed in the production of this data.
STUK is a member of the STAR (STrategy for Allied Radioecology) network. STAR is a European Commission EURATOM funded network of excellence (NoE) in Radioecology
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