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As with all living things on earth, potassium-containing bananas emit radioactivity at very low levels occurring naturally from potassium-40 (40K or K-40), which is one of several isotopes of potassium. The banana equivalent dose of radiation was developed in 1995 as a simple teaching-tool to educate the public about the natural, small amount of K-40 radiation occurring in every human and in common foods. The K-40 in a banana emits about 15 becquerels or 0.1 micro-sieverts (units of radioactivity exposure), an amount that does not add to the total body radiation dose when a banana is consumed. This is because the radiation exposure from consuming one banana is only 1% of the average daily exposure to radiation, 50 times less than a typical dental x-ray and 400 times less than taking a commercial flight across the United States.
Since bananas are more radioactive than most other fruits, they are a natural source of antimatter (it produces, on average, a positron approximately once every 75 minutes).
Although the radioactivity of the banana is very low, however, large shipments of the fruit on ships may be sufficient to trigger detectors or radiation sensors in certain circumstances.