Does everyone agree with the following? Sometimes I bring food back from Malaysia and just leave it in my bag and let it go through the scanner. I hope I don't turn into a mutant after eating such food.
"Q8: Is it safe to eat food, drink beverages, use medicine, or apply cosmetics if any of these products have gone through a cabinet x-ray system?
A8: There are no known adverse effects from eating food, drinking beverages, using medicine, or applying cosmetics that have been irradiated by a cabinet x ray system used for security screening.
The radiation dose typically received by objects scanned by a cabinet x-ray system is 1 millirad or less. The average dose rate from background radiation is 360 millirad per year. The minimum dose used in food irradiation for food preservation or destruction of parasites or pathogens is 30,000 rad."
"The importance of a telescope is not how big it is, how well made it is.
It is how many people, less fortunate than you, got to look through it."
-- John Dobson.
It shouldn't be an issue. The X-rays pass through the food items but should not leave significant amounts of residual radiation. Since the food is dead already, it comes to no harm and since there is no residual radiation, you should come to no harm
This is unlike eating rice from the Fukushima area (not that I know if they do indeed grow rice there). In that situation, radioactive fallout in the form of I 131 and Cs 137 are present in the food and continually emitting radiation so if you ingest it, the radioactive elements will be absorbed into the body, deposited into the relevant organs and continue irradiating you.
"The importance of a telescope is not how big it is, how well made it is.
It is how many people, less fortunate than you, got to look through it."
-- John Dobson.
