Radiation protection is offered by amino acids cysteine and glutathione

Another nice article on radiation protection from your diet:

Radiation protection is offered by amino acids cysteine and glutathione; Vitamins A, C, and E; minerals Selenium and Zinc. Russian clinical study reveals some benefit from Ginseng (Eleutherococcus senticosus (ES))

• Common foods such as apples, buckwheat, and sunflower seeds strongly protect and detoxify us from radiation.

•Foods such as apples, buckwheat and sunflower seeds cleanse us of radiation. Apples and sunflower seeds contain pectin which binds and removes radioactive residues from the body. Buckwheat contains glucosides which protect us from the effects of radiation. Cereal grasses and other green foods like chlorella and blue-green algae are also useful in cleansing our bodies of radiation.(1) Essential fatty acids like flax seed oil renew cells which have been burned by radiation. Soaking in a bath with sea salt and baking soda draws toxins including radiation from the body.

• Sea vegetables and miso may not be as familiar, but they are such powerful cleansers of radiation that they were used in Japan after nuclear bombs were dropped and in Russia after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. Sea vegetables are also known as seaweed. Many varieties can be found in stores including kelp, dulse, nori and wakame. They can also be taken as a supplement which can be useful to people who can not develop a taste for sea vegetables or who feel uncomfortable cooking it. Below is a recipe for miso soup which includes the sea vegetable wakame. Wakame can be found at natural foods stores and in Asian markets.

• Miso Soup with Sea Vegetables
• 2 Tbsp dried wakame pieces(Wakame is a sea vegetable sold in natural food stores or Asian markets. If it is not in little pieces already, you can simply cut with scissors.)
• 6 cups water
• 1/2 chopped onion
• 1 chopped carrot
• 1 cup chopped kale
• 2 Tbsp chopped scallions
• 2 Tbsp miso, any variety. (Mellow white miso is sweeter; darker miso like rice or barley is more salty.)
• sea salt to taste
• Olive oil to coat pot

• To Prepare Soup
• Coat a soup pot with olive oil and saute onions, carrot and kale over medium heat for five minutes
• Add water and dried wakame
• Bring to boil and simmer fifteen minutes.
• Turn off heat and let cool to body temperature.
• Add a few tablespoons of the broth to a small bowl containing the miso. Mix the miso into the broth and then mix back into the soup.
• Top with scallions, and add sea salt to taste and serve.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/030664_cell_phones_radiation.html#ixzz1GQmUgay3

Note: As much as I agree with this post, it is with great concern as more contaminated water from the Fukushima reactors enter the sea, along with the fact that this blogger is located in California - I am wary of ingesting seaweed from Japan, and pretty much any sea life from fish to sea vegetables from the Pacific Ocean for now. I used to get most of my seaweed (Nori, Hijiki,, and Wakame) from Japanese supermarkets in my area, but not now. I am using up what little I have on hand and will be purchasing North Atlantic kelp in the future. This will take getting used to, since I cook with a lot of Asian foods.  I may even look into purchasing kelp from New Zealand since I heard they banned Japanese kelp from being imported there. Just something to think about readers...but the choice is always yours.  Remember fish (and other sea creatures) can swim and spawn with radiated sea creature/fish partners...as nobody knows how the currents will carry the contaminated water and its living inhabitants....please keep this in the back of your mind. 


Caution: Even though I plan on purchasing Northern kelp, please note that those rare individuals who are iodine-sensitive should avoid consumption of large Northern kelps often sold as: Kombu, Norwegian Kelp, or Icelandic Kelp; these brown algae, mostly Laminaria spp., can have up to 8000ppm iodine.  Nori tends to have the least iodine of the commonly eaten sea vegetables at 15ppm.  Although seaweeds are innately safe to eat, they can become dangerously contaminated by sewage, industrial mining, agriculture, and radioactive wastes where they grow.  Infectious microbes and parasites are usually absent from seaweeds in cold northern waters too. 

Brown Seaweed Contains Promising Fat Fighter, Weight Reducer

ScienceDaily — Chemists in Japan have found that brown seaweed, a flavor component used in many Asian soups and salads, contains a compound that appears in animal studies to promote weight loss by reducing the accumulation of fat. Called fucoxanthin, the compound achieved a 5 percent to 10 percent weight reduction in test animals and could be developed into a natural extract or drug to help fight obesity, the researchers say.

Reference
• Seaweed
• Kelp
• Brown rice
• Bran

The compound targets abdominal fat, in particular, and may help reduce oversized guts, the scientists say. Their study was presented at the 232nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Fucoxanthin is a brownish pigment that gives brown seaweed its characteristic color and also conducts photosynthesis (the conversion of light to energy). It is found at high levels in several different types of brown seaweed, including a type of kelp that is used in traditional Japanese miso soup. But fucoxanthin is not found in abundance in green and red seaweed, which also are used in many Asian foods, the researchers say.
The brown seaweed used in the current study was Undaria pinnatifida, a type of kelp also known as wakame, which is widely consumed in Japan. As kelp forests are found in abundance along the California coast, the new research findings could represent a potentially lucrative market if kelp -- of which there are many varieties -- can be developed into effective anti-obesity drugs, according to the scientists.
"I hope that our study [points to a way to] help reduce obesity in the U.S. and elsewhere," says study leader Kazuo Miyashita, Ph.D., a chemistry professor at Hokkaido University in Hokkaido, Japan. The compound appears to fight fat through two different mechanisms, he says.
The study involved more than 200 rats and mice. In obese animals fed fucoxanthin, the compound appeared to stimulate a protein, UCP1, that causes fat oxidation and conversion of energy to heat, Miyashita says. The protein is found in white adipose tissue, the type of fat that surrounds internal organs. As the abdominal area contains abundant adipose tissue, the compound might be particularly effective at shrinking oversized guts, the researcher says. This is the first time that a natural food component has been shown to reduce fat by targeting the UCP1 protein, he says.
The pigment also appeared in animal studies to stimulate the liver to produce a compound called DHA, a type of omega-3 fatty acid, at levels comparable to fish oil supplementation. Increased levels of DHA reduce 'bad cholesterol' (low density lipoprotein), which is known to contribute to obesity and heart disease. But unlike fish oil supplements, fucoxanthin doesn't have an unpleasant smell, Miyashita says. No adverse side effects from fucoxanthin were reported in the mice and rats used in the study.
But eating lots of seaweed is not the quickest or most convenient path to weight loss, Miyashita cautions. He notes that a person would probably need to eat huge amounts of brown seaweed daily to cause noticeable weight loss. That's because fucoxanthin is tightly bound to proteins in the seaweed and is not easily absorbed in the form of whole seaweed. However, he hopes to extract the most active form of fucoxanthin from brown seaweed so that it can be developed into a pill that people can take daily or as needed.
Human studies are planned, the researcher says, but adds that it may take three to five years before such an anti-obesity pill is available to consumers. Until then, people should continue to eat a well-balanced diet and get plenty of exercise, he says. Funding for the current study was provided by the Japanese government.

Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society. American Chemical Society (2006, September 19). Brown Seaweed Contains Promising Fat Fighter, Weight Reducer. ScienceDaily.