In 1990 John Gummer, then the agriculture minister, was ridiculed after eating a beefburger with his four-year-old daughter, Cordelia, to dispel fears over mad cow disease.
Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, has tried a similar stunt, being filmed eating fish from Fukushima to prove it was safe.
Days earlier, Kishida’s government had begun to discharge 1.3 million metric tonnes of wastewater into the Pacific from the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant more than a decade after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The discharge, which the government and the International Atomic Energy Agency insist is safe, has provoked concerns and criticism. China has banned imports of seafood from Japan.
In a video released on social media, Kishida and three officials were shown eating
