How to save money on grocery shopping? Buy out of season
We cannot live without vegetables and fruits. In order to reduce the probability of eating pesticide residues, it is recommended that consumers adopt the following self-protection methods to avoid poisoning:
1. Wash fruits and vegetables with a special cleaning formula for fruits and vegetables.
2. Try to buy fruits and vegetables that are abundant in season.
3. Before and after natural disasters or festivals, it is recommended to avoid snapping up fruits and vegetables to prevent farmers from increasing the dose or probability of pesticide spraying in order to harvest fruits and vegetables.
4. Avoid eating certain fruits and vegetables.
5. You can buy processed fruits and vegetables with good reputation on the market (such as canned and pickled fruits and vegetables, etc.) or frozen vegetables, because most of the pesticides have been removed during the processing process (such as the "killing method").
6. Vegetables and fruits with uneven or fine hair (such as guava, kiwi, etc.) are more susceptible to pesticides. Therefore, before eating, those who can be peeled must be peeled. Otherwise, please be sure to use the vegetable and fruit cleaning formula and rinse with water before eating.
7. For fruits and vegetables with outer skin, before peeling, be sure to rinse with vegetable and fruit cleaning formula and water, otherwise the pesticides contaminated on the knife will also cause pollution.
8. Get rid of the habit of buying beautiful fruits and vegetables.
9. You can choose fruits and vegetables that contain less pesticides, such as onions, garlic, and nine-layer towers with a special smell; asparagus with strong resistance to pests and diseases; potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, radishes, or fruits and vegetables that need to be peeled before they can be eaten.
10. When it is found that there are drug spots on the surface of fruits and vegetables, or there is an abnormal or pungent chemical smell, it indicates that there may be residual pesticides and should be avoided.
11. Crops that are continuously harvested (can be harvested for a long time and several times in a row), such as beans, peas, chives, cucumbers, mustard greens, etc., must be sprayed with pesticides for a long time and continuously. Consumers should especially strengthen the number and time of cleaning to reduce their pesticide residues.
12. Vegetables and fruits that are branded and have passed the pesticide residue inspection by private or official units can be purchased, because they are relatively sound in management and appeal pipelines, and some fruits and vegetables will also be marked with the origin, providing consumers with an additional layer of protection.
Precautions for buying vegetables
First, do not buy vegetables with abnormal colors. Fresh vegetables are not the brighter the color, the better. For example, when buying cherry radishes, check whether the radishes are fading; if you find that the green of dried beans is brighter than others, choose carefully.
Do not buy vegetables with abnormal shape. Stale vegetables have abnormal forms such as wilting, drying up, damage, lesions, pest erosion, etc.; some vegetables will grow deformed due to the artificial use of hormones.
Third, do not buy vegetables with abnormal odors. In order to make some vegetables look better, unscrupulous traders soak them in chemicals, such as sulfur and nitrate, which have peculiar odors and are not easy to rinse off.
Common sense of buying out-of-season vegetables
Vegetables are seasonal. But in order to meet people's demand for vegetables in different seasons, out-of-season vegetables have appeared in the market. Out-of-season vegetables break through the seasonality of production and market supply, allowing people to eat fresh vegetables all year round, while seasonal vegetables are ignored by everyone every year. In fact, although out-of-season vegetables and seasonal vegetables look the same, they have caused certain pollution and nutrient loss in cultivation and transportation, so Tongxin County Industry and Commerce Bureau reminds consumers to use out-of-season vegetables with caution.
Out-of-season vegetables are mainly greenhouses. The high temperature in the greenhouses is not conducive to the degradation of pesticides, so most of them remain on the vegetables. Long-term accumulation of trace pesticides in the body can easily cause damage to human liver and kidneys, causing anemia, peeling, and even leukemia. Lack of light and high nitrate content in greenhouses can cause dizziness, nausea, convulsion, coma, and even death. Long-term consumption of this contaminated vegetable can cause chronic or acute poisoning.
Out-of-season vegetables are often transported over long distances, causing certain nutrient losses during transportation. According to nutritionists, during transportation, garlic and shallots will lose 50% of carotene, and mung beans will lose 60% of vitamin C within three days. Natural anti-cancer substances and enzymes in some foods will also be destroyed during transportation. In addition, various dust and fuel exhaust during the journey, as well as short-term cold, hot and dry climate changes will affect the nutritional content of vegetables.
Whether out-of-season vegetables are safe cannot be simply generalized. If out-of-season vegetables are mainly greens and belong to pollution-free foods, then their quality is not much different from that of normal season products. For the sake of safety, it is recommended that consumers soak the vegetables in water for about an hour after buying them home to remove a small amount of residual pesticides. Consumers can also remove the residual poison of different vegetables by light, peeling, washing, scalding, stir-frying, etc. However, some unscrupulous traders have increased the amount of preservatives or used banned products that are harmful to the human body in order to make the products look good and prolong the shelf life, which requires consumers to be more vigilant.
Choose vegetables carefully, to carefully distinguish the shape and color. Try to buy less vegetables with strange shapes and colors; some vegetables are ripened, but the peel or other places will leave green marks, so pay attention when buying. Most fruits in our country are listed from June to November, and the number of unconventional seasonal varieties is very small. If it is produced according to the requirements of anti-seasonal fruit planting norms, generally speaking, safety is not a problem. Absolutely pollution-free agricultural products are almost non-existent. "Pollution-free is only relatively speaking. As long as it passes the relevant tests of the state, it is safe to eat vegetables. Therefore, it is best for citizens to buy green and pollution-free vegetables with clear signs. Experts warn the public that choosing seasonal vegetables and eating local dishes is a better choice than eating out-of-season vegetables, and following nature is the best health rule. If you want to buy out-of-season vegetables, it is also best to buy more onions, carrots, eggplants, etc., which contain less pesticide residues.
