Emergency Public market fruit vendors are using artifical ripping chemicals!

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/396188

same for Mangoes....be careful what you buy

 

Nasty stuff. Seems like it's not so good for the person using it either.

https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+1434

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS/ Dry /calcium/ carbide in contact with skin may cause dermatitis. Contact with moist skin & mucous membranes leads to ulceration & scarring. A peculiar type of melanoderma with strong hyperpigmentation and numerous telangiectases is often observed. Persons exposed to calcium carbide frequently suffer from cheilitis characterized by dryness, swelling and hyperemia of the lips, intense desquamation, and deep radial fissures; erosive lesions with a tendency to suppuration can be observed in the mouth angles. Workers with a long professional history often suffer from nail lesions ... eye lesions with pronounced hyperemia of the lids and conjunctiva, often accompanied by mucopurulent secretions, are also observed. In heavy cases the sensitivity of the conjunctiva and cornea is strongly reduced. While the keratitis and keratoconjunctivitis evolve first without symptoms, they may later degenerate into corneal opacities.
[International Labour Office. Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety. 4th edition, Volumes 1-4 1998. Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Office, 1998., p. 104.58] **PEER REVIEWED**

CASE REPORTS/ The fast ripening of fruits means they may contain various harmful properties. A commonly used agent in the ripening process is calcium carbide, a material most commonly used for welding purposes. Calcium carbide treatment of food is extremely hazardous because it contains traces of arsenic and phosphorous. Once dissolved in water, the carbide produces acetylene gas. Acetylene gas may affect the neurological system by inducing prolonged hypoxia. The findings are headache, dizziness, mood disturbances, sleepiness, mental confusion, memory loss, cerebral edema and seizures. We report the case of a previously healthy 5 year-old girl with no chronic disease history who was transferred to our Emergency Department with an 8-h history of coma and delirium. A careful history from her father revealed that the patient ate unripe dates treated with calcium carbide.
[Per H et al; J Emerg Med 32 (2): 179-80 (2007)] **PEER REVIEWED** PubMed Abstract Full text: PMC2289291

/CASE REPORTS/ Calcium carbide used in fruit ripening industry as a cheap alternative to natural plant hormone ethylene produces highly inflammable acetylene gas. Inadvertent ignition of this gas can cause severe ocular burn injury with unilateral or bilateral blindness. To determine the characteristics and visual outcome of ocular burn injuries from calcium carbide during mango ripening season of West Bengal, eastern India. A prospective study of all cases of calcium carbide related ocular burn injury attending a tertiary care hospital during mango ripening season was carried out. The demographic features, characteristics of the injury, management and outcomes were recorded. Fifty five eyes of 33 patients were studied. Males were more commonly affected (20 patients, 60.6%) than females. The injury was bilateral in 22 patients (66.66%). Seventeen patients (51.51%) were below 20 years of age. Ten eyes had open globe injuries and 45 eyes had closed globe injuries. One eye of a patient had to be enucleated (3%). Children below 14 years of age were mainly injured while playing with indigenous fireworks of shooting carbide. Middle aged women were affected particularly during ignition of evening lamps. Carbide lamp was another source of injury. Males are more commonly affected by calcium carbide related ocular injuries. Children and young adults are the common victims. Such injuries can involve both the eyes and cause a permanent visual disability.
[Bandyopadhyay S et al; Nepal J Ophthalmol 5 (10): 242-5 (2013)] **PEER REVIEWED** PubMed Abstract

 

I cannot imagine how much you dont know about the price of this chemical thing they use to abuse our health

 

I wrote this thing l discovered not for you or those people who think they know best but for innocent poeple who know nothing but just buy what they find in the market. To alarm everyone who cares and most of all for vendors to STOP ripening fruits artificially.

 

I know about calburo growing up...my grandma uses it too. So far nobody died of cancer in my family. At any rate, I like to buy my fruits unripened anyway--can't force myself to eat all the ripened fruits at the same time--nice to schedule eating each type as they ripened.

 

There is an organic market in Daro, I assume they don't use calburo or another kind of that stuff, of course, you never know

 

Seen it used over the years especially for bananas, 'cept up in the 'bukid', they don't mix with water, just chuck the fruit into big boxes with tops and put a couple of pieces of the calcium carbide at the bottom. Just my opinion but it's not really earth-shattering news, most of the people(farming folk), I met that have used it regularly, all lived well into their 70's & 80's, some even older.
If you really are going to be giving out calamitous health warnings etc, please feel free to mention also the huge volumes of white rice local people consume, the usual copious amounts of white sugar in everything and the monotonous regularity of overfeeding on lechon-baboy at parties etc.

 

Please tell us then as I am sure some members will be interested.