Radiology Practice Offering X-Rays Of Strawberries In Australia
In a story coming from our friends down-under, we've learned that one radiology practice is offering to scan strawberries after needles were found in a handful, leading to a national fruit contamination scare.
The humble strawberry has had a rough go in the last few weeks, but one Mudgee business is doing its part to bring people’s confidence back to Australia’s favorite tiny red fruit.
Just not in the way you’d expect.
Mudgee Radiology is offering to X-Ray punnets of strawberries at no charge for consumers concerned about finding any potentially harmful artifacts inside.
Radiologist Uschi Rowlands was horrified to see the impact the removal and destruction of strawberries was having on an already strained farming industry.
“We’re really fond of farmers here at Mudgee Radiology, we’ve done a lot raising money during the drought and I was just horrified to see beautiful strawberries being thrown out and farmers losing their crops and their livelihood.” she said.
You can bring your punnets into Mudgee Radiology for a quick scan where you can be shown on a digital display what - if anything - is inside the fruit.
“I think Mudgee people are sensible and they’re just trying to support the farmers and are cutting the strawberries up.”
“But if that isn’t giving them enough confidence still, I’m happy for them to come in and we can just X-Ray them really quickly at no charge and try and get the to keep buying the strawberries to support our farmers.”
While they haven’t had too many people taking them up on their offer, they’re just happy to be helping in any way they can.
“We’ve only had a couple so far, all the staff are doing it because it’s right here.
We’re trying to buy strawberries every day,” she said.
“I think that most people in Mudgee are chopping before they chomp. We’ve got enough people suffering through this terrible drought,”
“We’re just trying to do our bit here at Mudgee Radiology.”
Uschi notes that the strawberries do not absorb any radiation as part of the process and that food suppliers often X-Ray their products before they hit store shelves.
