Health Issues due to Chemicals sprayed over and into fruits and how to get rid of them

 Chemicals in fruits, Health Issues and how to get rid of them.

    As we all know fruits are one of most important part of the human diet, fresh, testy and healthy fruits attract special attention. Human in general give importance to the colour of the fruits in the market (if color looks good then the fruits are OK). Many of us are not aware of the chemicals used for colouring and adding test to fruits. Some of them have less effect tot human health while some others have severe health consequences. This post elaborates chemicals of these kind and suggests possible methods to get rid of these chemicals.

    

    For your clarification, no fruits are left chemically untouched, hence at least wash fruits several times before you eat.

    Chemicals used to ripen banana: 

    The acetylene gas produced from hydrolysis of calcium carbide is used next to ethylene to ripen bananas. This calcium carbide is not safe as it may contain traces of arsenic and phosphorus hydride like much toxic dangerous chemicals which can cause vomiting, diarrhoea, burning sensation in chest, headache, vertigo, dizziness  like complications. 

    Ethephon is another ethylene producing chemicals (used to ripen a large variety of fruits including banana, apples, tomatoes, mangoes, guava etc.) which has also indicated severe health effects like inhibition of growth of Streptomyces and accordingly inhibition of antibiotic production.

Hence it is recommended to carefully peel out the banana while eating.

    Fruit Waxing:

    The primary reason of waxing fruits is to prevent water loss, to avoid getting spoiled and to achieve shiny and glazy look. Almost all kind of fruits are waxed. Natural wax on fruits negligibly cause any health effect cause they can be washed away by general washing. 

    But other form of waxing and artificial glazing may cause severe health effects. So we must think of alternatives available and methods to get rid of these chemicals.

1. Wash fruits with water for long before eating.

2.  You should eat pealed apple.

3. If possible, choose local banana over those available in market.

4. Don't go for super shining fruits rather choose healthy fruits.

5. Buy fruits from farms before spraying poison.

    Government officials in the corresponding department must be responsible for not punishing the vendors using chemicals for ripening of fruits which are poison or clearly the carcinogen. 

Authority responsible for food safety and security are:

FSSAI (Food Safety and Standard Authority of India)

FCI (Food Corporation of India)

Thank you for reading

Reference:

Banana ripening by acetylene

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijfs/2019/2520179/

Image Credit:

Banana:

Evan-Amos, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Ethephon Molecule:

By Edgar181 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2085501

Different Colours of shellac:

By Nuberger13 at en.wikipedia - I created this work entirely by myself., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13477833

Carnabua:

By Simon A. Eugster - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7549021