Taking care of your health and safety, many people try to grow vegetables and fruits on their backyards or vegetable gardens, buy them from trusted people or acquaintances. This gives a guarantee that all fruits are free from harmful constituents. After all, it often happens that instead of the benefits and vitaminization of the body, voluntary absorption of carcinogenic substances is obtained, namely: nitrates, all kinds of growth accelerators and pesticides, with the help of which the struggle for harvest was conducted.
To distinguish between high-quality vegetables, greens and fruits from overfed chemistry "by eye" is not so simple. However, over the years of observation, experts have revealed some regularity between the amount of fertilizing fertilizers and the appearance of the fruit. In the event that you have to buy vegetables in a supermarket or on the market, you should know some signs of vegetables and fruits overfed with nitrates, and also how to minimize the amount of harmful substances in fruits consumed in food.
Signs of high nitrate content in vegetables and fruits
When choosing cucumbers, try to buy fruits of small size. Yellow spots are a sign of high content of nitrates. Before consuming cucumbers should be washed, cut off the ends on both sides and clean the peel, since most of the harmful components accumulate in the tips and skin.
Ask the seller to cut the tomato. If the flesh of the fruit is lighter than the skin, then this is a sure sign of the presence of harmful substances. Thick peel and the presence of whitish veins in tomatoes also signal us about the danger.
Cabbage, "stuffed" with chemistry, has a lot of dark spots and black spots on the leaves. This is a manifestation of a fungus, which likes to "eat" with nitrate cabbage. Remember that before cooking at cabbage cabbage, at least four top leaves should be removed.
When buying potatoes, pay attention to the absence of green spots on the tubers. Manifested green is the presence in the composition of solanine: a poison formed as a result of improper storage. Appearance of "nitrate" potatoes is not much different from free from chemicals, but there is a time-tested folk method for selecting root crops. To do this, push the tuber with your fingernail - if the nail comes in gently, this is a sure sign of using chemicals during cultivation. Potatoes, free from nitrates, press a nail in a peculiar crunch.
It is not advisable to buy large roots. It is a large size that may indicate that when growing this culture, manufacturers have not spared the "chemistry" and growth accelerators.
If the cut watermelon has yellowish veins, then it is better to refuse such "happiness".
Too juicy green color and unnaturally tall stalks of green indicate the possible presence of nitrates. Leaf greens are best washed in salted water( 1-2 small spoons of rock salt per liter of water).If you have doubts about the quality of greenery, then leave it "soak" in the same solution for 30 minutes. The stems of plants are not recommended, since they contain much more harmful chemistry than in leaves.
How to reduce nitrate content in
products The largest amount of nitrates accumulates at the bottom of the fruit. In this regard, cut on 1.5 cm on both sides of radish, carrots, beets, zucchini.
In cleaned and washed vegetables, about 15% of nitrates remain. To reduce their quantity to a minimum it is possible with the help of ordinary water. The fact is that nitrates have the property of dissolving in water. Therefore, before consuming or cooking, vegetables should be soaked in a large volume of water for 20-30 minutes. And even better, vegetables are released from harmful elements during cooking. From cabbage, up to 40% of nitrates disappear, and from potatoes - up to 80%.Using young "unchecked" vegetables from a new crop, the water in which they were brewed, it is necessary to drain.
If you do not have confidence in the "environmental friendliness" and safety of purchased vegetables, then it is better to use them only after cooking. Yes, in baked or boiled fruits, the content of useful substances is less, but the effect of "chemistry" on the body is significantly reduced.
All vegetables that are exposed to long-term storage( potatoes, carrots, cabbage, beets, etc.) lose up to 50% of nitrates in 2.5-3 months.
Nitrates accumulate in the skin of the fruit 5 times more than in the flesh. It should be remembered that the ripe fruit contains much less harmful substances than the immature fruit.
Healthy and quality fruits are saturated with antioxidants, which are able to neutralize to a certain extent the negative impact on the body of harmful substances. But it is known that the less fresh the fruit, the less amount of vitamins and antioxidants it contains. Try to plan your purchases from the very morning, thereby increasing the likelihood that the vegetables you buy in the market or in the store are more fresh. When choosing vegetables, pay attention to the green "tails" and stems - they have not dried out, as well as the elasticity of leaves and peel.
Lemon, cranberries, apple cider vinegar, apples, lingonberries contain a large amount of antioxidants, so try to fill all your salads with them.
It turns out that there are vegetables that are less prone to accumulating nitrates. These include onion, eggplant, garlic, legumes, zucchini. Grapes also absorbs much less harmful substances than other fruits.