Health implications of eating fruits ripened with calcium carbide

 Ladi loves oranges and bought some from a hawker when their bus stopped in a town on her way from Lagos to Abuja. However, she found herself vomiting and feeling a burning sensation in her chest, abdomen and throat throughout the trip. She said she gradually felt better but wondered whether the orange was poisoned. […]

 Ladi loves oranges and bought some from a hawker when their bus stopped in a town on her way from Lagos to Abuja. However, she found herself vomiting and feeling a burning sensation in her chest, abdomen and throat throughout the trip. She said she gradually felt better but wondered whether the orange was poisoned.

Narrating her experience, Mrs Adaobi  said she bought some bananas from a trader and ate them without any immediate reaction but soon noticed that she gradually had difficulty swallowing food, smelled  chemical in her urine and had diarrhoea with blood, on three occasions.

Fruits are very good for the health. However, some unscrupulous traders, businessmen and farmers have resorted to hastening the ripening process of fruits with calcium carbide. This has adverse effects on health.

Some fruits ripened with calcium carbide include cashew, banana, mango, plantain, pawpaw and orange.

Recently, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)  warned the public against consuming fruits ripened with calcium carbide saying such fruits cause heart, kidney and liver failures when eaten. 

Explaining what calcium carbide is, a food safety expert, John Tehinse, said when you put calcium carbide in water, it releases acetylene which is used for welding. “Acetylene also supports ripening, we call it a ripening hormone, but the one that does that, does  so naturally, that is the acetylene in the air. The air which we breath, contains acetylene but the concentration is lower, so the body can tolerate it but when you ripen fruits artificially with calcium carbide, then you cannot control that high amount of acetylene that goes into the fruit,” said Tehinse who is a national food safety expert with the EU-funded United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) National Quality Infrastructure Project (NQIP).

He said the reaction of  eating fruits ripened with calcium carbide could be  short term, that is it can immediately cause acute reactions like headache, vomiting, stomach disorders, allergic reactions and several others depending on how the individual reacts. He said in a long term, it could lead to heart failure, skin diseases and that  the greatest threat is that it is carcinogenic – causes cancer.

Dr Ibrahim Salihu Kwaifa, a consultant Nephrologist at Wuse District Hospital,  Abuja said aside acetylene, calcium carbide contains some other impurities that are  harmful to health.

“It contains arsenic which is injurious to the body. Arsenic is a chemical which contains pyrophoric acid that is also injurious to the body and other unknown impurities,” he said.

He said some health related issues from the consumption of fruits ripened with  carbide include headaches, confusion, memory loss, sleep abnormalities, stomach irritation, seizures, cancer and kidney defect when such fruits are taken over a long period of time.  

Asked how long it takes for reaction to begin to manifest in the human body after consumption, he said the effects of chemical on the body varies

“The first one is immunological, that is it affects the immune system – this has nothing to do with any dosage. The second is dosage dependent. This can be measured by dosage over a long period of time. It would over work the body but the number of days cannot be ascertained. It depends on so many factors,”  he said. 

Dr Kwaifa  said the only way to access people affected with consumption of carbide is through their blood levels if such persons go for tests or when a case of food poisoning is suspected. 

Tehinse said people can recognize fruits ripened with calcium carbide in the following ways: 

The colour of  fruits ripened with calcium carbide is not uniform, it has yellow and green patches unlike when it is ripened naturally.

Secondly, the texture of fruits ripened with carbide is hard – even when it appears yellow, if you touch it, it is hard –  while the one ripened naturally has soft texture.

He said thirdly “what follows natural ripening is conversion of starch to sugar therefore anything ripened naturally will be sweet when you taste it but when it is ripened artificially that conversion of starch to sugar is not done and the taste is not sweet , you wouldn’t get that natural fruit taste.”

He said another way to differentiate is to drop the fruit in water,  naturally ripened ones will sink to the bottom of the bucket  while those ripened artificially will float because the fruit is immature.

Tehinse and Dr Kwaifa  also advised the public to wash all fruits they buy thoroughly with water to reduce the contaminations that adhere to the surface of the fruits. 

NAFDAC also added that “Naturally ripened fruits usually have brown or black spots while those artificially ripened have traces of powdery substances and peel off quickly.”

The agency said that ripening fruits and vegetables with calcium carbide is a criminal offence, and promised to punish perpetrators of the act.