Ali Mahdi Abdul Hussein, Zainab Shakir Baqer, Hayder J Musa
Food has some radioactivity that gets inside our bodies when we eat it. This study used a tool to check how much radiation is in different kinds of legumes that people buy in Iraq. They looked at eighteen types of legumes. Found out how much radiation they had. The legumes had some radiation from things like uranium and thorium, but not very much. One type of radiation, called 40K, was found in large amounts. The amount of uranium in the legumes was very small, ranging from none to 2.895 Bq kg-1. On average, it was 0.693 Bq kg-1. The thorium was also very small, ranging from 0 to 1.475 Bq kg-1 with an average of 0.514 units per kilogram. The 40K was much higher, ranging from 300.46 to 562.97 Bq kg-1 with an average of 405.39 Bq kg-1. When people eat these legumes, they get an amount of radiation. The amount of radiation people get from eating these legumes is very small, ranging from 15.83 to 29.66 μSv y-1, with an average of 22.63 μSv y-1. The 40K is what gives people most of the radiation, making up 93% of the total amount. So the legumes do not give people radiation from uranium and thorium. The total amount of radiation from the legumes is very low. This study gives us some information about how much radiation is in the legumes that people eat in Iraq. This information can help us keep an eye on the radiation in food and see how much radiation people get from the food they eat.