'Plutonium crop' at Aldermaston

Vegetables grown near the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment contain up to seven times more radiation than normal, a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food document has revealed. The only other vegetables with comparable plutonium levels are grown near Sellafield.

But Dr John Cooper of the National Radiological Protection Board said: "The level of radioactivity is very low. You could be a dedicated runner bean eater for a year and still take in well below 0.1 per cent of the dose limit."