Mango The King of Fruits is Corrupted – Toxic truth of Mangoes

Mangoes can be risky as Maggi  -Traders using calcium carbide to ripen mangoes

Mango – known as the king of fruits, it occupies prime places on Indian markets. But nowadays it is more in the news for its artificial ripening with the help of harmful chemicals – Calcium carbide. Be careful using those juicy mangoes are not so healthy ones. It has more harmful effects than benefits on human beings

Stay away! Artificially ripened mangoes – How to spot harmful artificially ripened mangoes 

Shining looks- lacks uniformity in colour-pulp doesn’t ripen properly

Artificially ripened fruit will have a smooth,wrinkle free and shining skin.  An artificially ripened mango lacks uniformity in colour. It will have green and yellow patches around the surface. Moreover, the fruit gets yellow colour on the outside, but the pulp doesn’t ripen properly and does not taste sweet.

Precautions to be taken by the Consumers

• Wash the fruits thoroughly before consumption under potable running water for few minutes, so that the chemicals are washed away.
• While eating mangoes and apples, it is better to cut the fruit into pieces, rather than consuming them directly.
• As far as practically possible, peel off the fruits before consumption.
• Do not buy fruits sold during the off season
• Not to buy mangoes till the end of April,which is when the actual mango season kick in

Mango Fruit Traders selling sweet poison – Traders using calcium carbide to ripen mangoes

Mango fruits are one of the best natural food, usually consumed raw. Now a day fruit are deliberately being contaminated by chemicals causing serious health hazard. In India, a series of raids done by the police department revealed that fruit traders/sellers were using calcium carbide (It is banned under Section 44 A of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act) to artificially ripen mangoes. It can cause skin related problems and consuming even a nominal amount of the substance can lead to Cancer and other diseases.

What is Artificial Ripening?

Unsaturated hydrocarbons such as acetylene, ethylene etc. can promote ripening and induce colour changes effectively. Although the cosmetic quality of such artificially ripened fruits was found to improve, organoleptic quality was impaired especially when harvested fruits are subjected to treatment without considering their maturity status. Besides, the quantity of ripening agent required to induce ripening for better cosmetic quality, including appearance will be much more than conventional dose, when properly mature fruits are not used for such purposes