grated and squeezed. The extract is used to prepare coconut cream to be combined with
other foods.
The drained copra meat is usually fed to the livestock, which are later
consumed by the people. Sprouting coconuts are utilized as food by the Marshallese who
eat the spongy, pastry-like cotyledon or embryo food that fills the interior of. the seed
cavity. This embryo food absorbs moisture and nutrients from the seed cavity (meat and
juice) to support the growth of the germinating coconut's leaf sheath and root.
Pandanus was the second most common food plant encountered and both wild and
cultivated varieties were collected. Though wild varieties are not utilized as food, they
are valuable as indicator plant to estimate the radionuclide concentrations in the edible
species.
Cultivated Pandanus is highly prized throughout the Marshall Islands for its
sweet, spicy-flavored juice that is extracted from its numerous keys or phalanges, which
are sections of the fruit. The juice may be used immediately or dried as fruit leather and
stored for later consumption.
Pandanus samples usually consisted of two large fruits;
fully matured fruits were collected when available.
Breadfruit was collected from most of the inhabited islands because it is another
important food plant cultivated by the Marshallese. Ripe breadfruit are either baked or
fried.
It is also dried and preserved in the ground to be cooked later.
yellowish-green ripe breadfruit were collected whenever possible.
Yellow to
A sample usually
included five fruits.
Other vegetation collected were papayas, squash, bananas, and Tacca. Tacca is a
perennial plant with root tubers that are processed into a starchy material to be cooked
or preserved for later use. These food crops are not as common in the diet as coconut,
breadfruit, and Pandanus.
Animal samples collected by field teams, with the exception of coconut crabs, were
purchased from the Marshallese by the DOE representatives. The purchased animals were
always either pigs or chickens, which represent the major source of meat protein outside
of imported canned meats.
The
pigs were moved to a contamination-free area, and biologists carefully
dissected from the animals the major organs: heart, liver, lung, kidneys, sternum,
cartilage, spleen, skin, muscle tissue, bone, and reproductive organs.
The organs were
carefully removed to avoid contact with the animal skin, transferred to plastic bags,
labeled, and then frozen. The major organs removed from the chicken were muscle, liver,
bones, skin, gizzard, and heart.