Not all fruits need ripening, mainly fruits that need long-distance transport and are subject to deterioration, such as bananas, mangoes, kiwis, etc. If they are fully matured and then transported, they may have rotted when they arrive at the destination. Therefore, it must be picked before it turns yellow to mature to “endure” long-distance transportation. Experts said that as long as it involves long-distance transportation, ripening agents must be used, and European and American countries and regions are also commonly used.

During the summer season, it is a fruit-rich and colorful season. Some netizens have doubts about ripening fruits. Does eating ripening fruits affect health? Does ripening fruit nutrition change? In this connection, the "Life Times" and "People's Daily" reporters interviewed a number of experts.

Most of the market is ripening fruit?

[Response] No, it takes long-distance transportation and anti-season and late-maturing fruit to ripen. Europe and the United States are also commonly used.

"Is it true that most of the fruit sold in the market is fruit ripening? Is this the case?" one netizen asked in the Weibo.

Dr. Shi Jun, Ph.D. of Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the reporter: “Not all fruits need ripening, but are mainly fruits that need to be transported long distances and are subject to deterioration, such as bananas, mangoes, and kiwis. If they are fully matured and then transported, It may be rotted when it arrives at the destination. Therefore it must be picked before it becomes yellow to be able to bear the long-distance transportation."

The fruits that are removed are not fully ripe. To mature them, ripening agents are needed. Wang Fengzhong, director of the Ministry of Agriculture's Agricultural Product Processing Quality Risk Assessment Laboratory (Beijing), introduced that the natural maturation of fruit is a kind of gas, ethylene, which is a plant's own hormone and can be used as a signal to stimulate rapid fruit ripening. The process of artificial ripening is to simulate this mechanism by artificially applying ethylene gas or ethylene release agent (ethephon) to induce fruit ripening.

Feng Xiaoyuan, a researcher at the Agricultural Quality Standards and Testing Technology Research Center at the Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, said that in addition to fruits that require long-distance transportation, some off-season fruits may use plant growth regulators to promote premature fruit ripening. Growth regulators are substances similar to phytohormones. Commonly used are gibberellins, cytokinins, naphthaleneacetic acid, clopidogrel, and the like. Fruits themselves also produce these substances.

Are fruit ripening techniques widely used? Several experts have stated that as long as they involve long-distance transportation, ripening agents must be used, and European and American countries and regions are also commonly used.

According to Chen Jinyong, deputy director of the Institute of Fruit Cultivation and Plant Protection at the Zhengzhou Fruit Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, as early as before the synthesis of ethephon, the fruit grower put ripe bananas or apples together with raw bananas and raw apples, and then sealed them to make raw bananas. The principle of speeding up the ripening of raw apples is to release mature ethylene through mature fruits to induce ripening of bananas and apples. In addition, folks also use sticks to ripen ripe bananas and apples, and also use the principle of burning sticks to produce ethylene gas.

When is fruit ripening agent added? Feng Xiaoyuan believes that as long as ripening agents are used for ripening, they must be mature fruits.

Chen Junshi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a researcher at the Nutrition and Food Safety Institute of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview with the People's Net Power Forum that ripeners are generally used outside of fruits and vegetables and in non-edible parts. "For example, bananas are just on the handle. Take the bananas off the banana tree, and then take the ethephon and treat it a little."

Does ripening fruit affect human health?

[Response] will not cause children to become precocious and add them within the allowable range without affecting their health. Experiments have shown that excessive addition of ripening agents will lead to fruit ripening and easy to corruption.

Some people worry that eating ripe fruit will make children precocious. Shi Jun said that this worry is not necessary. Sexual maturation in children is regulated by sex hormones, and neither ethylene nor ethephon can exhibit sex hormone-like effects in the human body, nor can they participate in the synthesis of sex hormones, and are less likely to cause precocious puberty.

Shi Jun further explained that plant hormones and animal hormones are two completely different substances. Phytohormone is a small molecule signalling substance in plants. It only plays a role in transmitting growth and development information, and does not participate in the actual "construction" of cells. When these signals are combined with receptors on plant cell membranes, such as the ETR1 protein that receives ethylene signals, the cells undergo corresponding metabolic growth and physiological activities. There is no device on the body's cell membrane that accepts these signal molecules, and naturally it will not "respond".

Does eating ripe fruit affect human health? Feng Xiaoyuan stated that all plant growth regulators that are approved for use in China must undergo safety evaluation. The state has strict standards for the use of growth regulators and their time. Different fruits are not the same, the national standard GB2763 provides that the residues of ethephon in kiwifruit, banana, pineapple and litchi shall not exceed 2 mg/kg, and the residual amount of clopidazole in kiwifruit and grapes shall not exceed 0.05 mg/ kilogram. As long as used in accordance with the national standard and used within the scope of approval, food safety can be guaranteed.

Shi Jun told reporters that a joint study of Michigan State University, Oregon State University and the University of California selected 20 test subjects to take ethephon at a dose of 0.5 mg/kg/day for 16 days and found that the testers The erythrocyte cholinesterase content did not change and plasma cholinesterase decreased. However, within the next two weeks, this indicator gradually returned to normal levels.

So, is it safe to use chemicals that are used as ripeners in fruits? According to Shi Jun, according to the report of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a normal adult can receive an acceptable daily dose of ethephon at 0.05 mg/kg body weight. “An adult who weighs 50 kg receives 2.5 mg of ethephon daily and it is still safe. It is equivalent to eating more than two pounds of bananas, but almost no one will do this.” Shi Junping for example.

In addition, the median lethal dose of oral ethephon is approximately 2000 mg/kg body weight, which would not occur at all in the case of normal fruit consumption. "Furthermore, if such a dose of ethephon is sprayed, the fruit will quickly rot into sauce." Shi Jun added, "Actually, if we use ethephon, there will be no excess residue."

Will fruit growers and traders excessively add ripening agents? Wang Fengzhong said that the use of ripening agents has a special nature: the use of a small quantity has advantages, and the use of ripening agents has many disadvantages. For example, a certain concentration of ripening agent can ripen the fruit, but if used too much, the fruit will mature too quickly and be easily corrupted, which is not conducive to transportation and storage. A paper by Professor Ren Shunxiang of South China Agricultural University also mentioned that the use concentration of ethephon should be 500-1000 mg/l. If the concentration is too high, the flesh tends to age, and brown spots and rot appear soon after turning yellow.

Does ripening fruit nutrition change?

[Response] Different effects on different nutrients. Some affect the taste, some decrease in nutrition, and some increase in nutrition

Does the nutrients of ripening fruits change? Wang Fengzhong said that ripening will not fundamentally change the nutritional composition of fruits, and even studies have shown that the use of ethylene in the mung bean seed germination process can increase the content of soluble protein, soluble sugar and vitamin C in mung bean sprouts by 25.1%. 66.07% and 163.9%; The total sugar content of peach ripening with ethylene increased, but also can maintain vitamin C content, the nutritional value has an increasing trend.

“Rational ripening has different effects on different nutrients and cannot be generalized.” Shi Jun said that vitamin C content and lycopene of ripened fruits after picking are lower than that of natural mature tomatoes, but the effect on carbohydrates is minimal.

Feng Xiaoyuan said that after the use of ripeners, the energy conversion in the flesh tissue may not be sufficient, and the taste and texture are not as good as those of natural ripe fruit.

How to judge whether fruits and vegetables are naturally mature? Shi Jun told reporters that there is no difference in principle between artificial ripening and natural ripening. From this perspective, the two fruits are more difficult to distinguish from each other in shape. Relatively speaking, the aroma difference between the two may be the most obvious. The substances that make the fruit scented are accumulated during the ripening process. Short-term ripening does not achieve this effect. Natural ripe tomatoes, for example, smell very fragrant, and ripening has almost no fragrance.

Eat ripe fruit, whether there are precautions? Wang Fengzhong said that the currently used ripening agents for fruits and vegetables are mainly ethephon, which can be dissolved in water. If there is any fear of residue, it may be better to rinse the fruit with water for several minutes.

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