Biological Agents and Effects

BIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENTS

Plants as a Food Source

Plant contamination occurs by the accumulation of fallout on their outer surfaces or by absorption of radioactive elements through their roots. Your first choice of plant food should be vegetables such as potatoes, turnips, carrots, and other plants whose edible portion grows underground. These are the safest to eat once you scrub them and remove their skins.

Second in order of preference are those plants with edible parts that you can decontaminate by washing and peeling their outer surfaces. Examples are bananas, apples, tomatoes, prickly pears, and other such fruits and vegetables.

Any smooth-skinned vegetable, fruit, or plant that you cannot easily peel or effectively decontaminate by washing will be your third choice of emergency food.

The effectiveness of decontamination by scrubbing is inversely proportional to the roughness of the fruit's surface. Smooth-surfaced fruits have lost 90 percent of their contamination after washing, while washing rough-surfaced plants removes only about 50 percent of the contamination.

You eat rough-surfaced plants (such as lettuce) only as a last resort because you cannot effectively decontaminate them by peeling or washing. Other difficult foods to decontaminate by washing with water include dried fruits (figs, prunes, peaches, apricots, pears) and soya beans.

In general, you can use any plant food that is ready for harvest if you can effectively decontaminate it. Growing plants, however, can absorb some radioactive materials through their leaves as well as from the soil, especially if rains have occurred during or after the fallout period. Avoid using these plants for food except in an emergency.

The use of biological agents is real. Prepare yourself for survival by being proficient in the tasks identified in your Soldier's Manuals of Common Tasks (SMCTs). Know what to do to protect yourself against these agents.

Biological agents are microorganisms that can cause disease among personnel, animals, or plants. They can also cause the deterioration of material. These agents fall into two broad categories-pathogens (usually called germs) and toxins. Pathogens are living microorganisms that cause lethal or incapacitating diseases. Bacteria, rickettsiae, fungi, and viruses are included in the pathogens. Toxins are poisons that plants, animals, or microorganisms produce naturally. Possible biological war-fare toxins include a variety of neurotoxic (affecting the central nervous system) and cytotoxic (causing cell death) compounds.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23