The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has stated that eating vegetables that have been ripened with calcium carbide could cause cancer, heart failure, kidney failure, and liver failure.
Prof. Adeyeye also said that fruits ripened with calcium carbide could cause a lot of thirst, irritation in the mouth and nose, weakness, lasting skin damage, trouble swallowing, vomiting, and skin ulcers.
Adeyeye said this on Tuesday, when the agency’s workshop to teach the media about the risks of selling drugs and ripening fruits with calcium carbides got off to a formal start.
She said that preparing fruits with carbide is a public problem and that the agency has taken a number of steps to stop it.
“Fruits provide the body with micronutrients that improve immunity and prevent diseases among other benefits. Fruit ripening is a unique aspect of plant development, which makes the fruit edible, softer, sweeter, more palatable, nutritious, and attractive.
“However, the consumption of fruits such as mango, banana, plantain, guava, orange, grape, etc, or any other fruits ripened with calcium carbide is dangerous to health.
“Fruits artificially ripened with calcium carbide may be ripe on the skin, but the inside remains unripe. You can identify such artificially ripened fruits if you notice that the fruits are all yellow whereas the stem is dark, this is true, especially with bananas and plantains. In addition, naturally ripened fruits usually have brown or black spots, while those artificially ripened have traces of powdery substances and peel off quickly,” she said.
The NAFDAC DG said that developing fruits artificially causes them to lose a lot of qualities, like colour, taste, and texture, and that this doesn’t give the fruits their natural smell and taste.
“These fruits do not possess uniform colour and are less juicy than when ripened naturally and have a comparatively shorter shelf life. Calcium Carbide when sprayed with water reacts chemically to produce acetylene, which acts like ethylene and ripens fruits by a similar process.
“Calcium carbide generally contains impurities such as arsenic, lead particles, phosphorus and others that pose several very serious health hazards. Consumption of fruits containing these impurities may cause cancer, heart, kidney and liver failure. They may also cause frequent thirst, irritation in the mouth and nose, weakness, permanent skin damage, difficulty in swallowing, vomiting, skin ulcer and so forth. Higher exposure may cause undesired fluid build-up in the lungs.
“Acetylene produced by calcium carbide affects the neurological system and reduces oxygen supply to the brain and further induces prolonged hypoxia. The impurities are hazardous to pregnant women and children and may lead to headache, dizziness, mood disturbances, mental confusion, memory loss, swelling in the brain caused by excessive fluids, sleepiness, seizure, and others,” she said.
She went on to say that calcium carbide is alkaline and eats away at the mucous tissue in the abdomen and messes up the way the intestines work.
“Consuming such artificially ripened fruits could result in sleeping disorders, mouth ulcers, skin rashes, kidney problems and possibly even cancer. Other symptoms of poisoning include diarrhoea, burning or tingling sensation in abdomen and chest difficulty in swallowing, irritation in eyes, and skin, sore throat, cough, shortness of breath, and numbness”, she reiterated.
