Boris Johnson gulps down can of peach juice from Fukushima

Boris Johnson has been filmed drinking a can of peach juice from Fukushima, the Japanese region hit by nuclear disaster after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The video, tweeted by his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono, shows the Foreign Secretary chugging the can at the Foreign Office in London this week.

“Very good… Mmm,” he said, before studying the can, a gift from Mr Kono.

The moment was intended to prove that food and drink from Fukushima is safe, seven years after the meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear energy plant – the most serious nuclear incident since the 1988 Chernobyl disaster.

More than 50 countries imposed import bans on regional produce following the accident, around half of which remain in place, including restrictions from the US and China.

Earlier this month, the EU said it would ease import restrictions on agricultural items and seafood from the region.

Research published last year showed the radiation released by the disaster may have lingering effects on fish – but that the risk posed to human beings through consumption, in part thanks to strong regulation, is minimal.

The study, published in the journal PNAS, shows that freshwater fish and ocean bottom dwellers near Fukushima have a higher risk of contamination with the radioactive chemical caesium than most other types of ocean fish in the same area.

The risk diminishes the further away the fish are from the city’s nuclear facilities – and the research showed there was a relatively low risk of people in Japan consuming contaminated fish.

The former London mayor is not the first politician to publicly consume food or drink thought to involve health risks, in an effort to prove it is safe.

In 1990, then-Minister of Agriculture John Gummer enlisted his four-year-old daughter to eat a burger with him as part of attempts to demonstrate British beef did not present a danger to people’s health – amid growing fears over Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly referred to as “mad cow disease”.