The harm of ethylene to the body

Due to the improvement of living standards, many cross-season fruits have appeared on the market. Many people think that these are transported over long distances, but this is not the case. Most of the cross-seasonal fruits on the market are ripened artificially, and the most commonly used ripening agent is ethephon. This article provides a detailed introduction to the question of whether ethephon is harmful and whether consuming ripening products will promote precocious puberty in children.

Currently, more than half of the fruits on the market are ripened artificially, and the product used for ripening is ethephon.

So is there any harm to the human body from ethephon?

In fact, ethephon is a legal plant growth regulator that can promote fruit ripening. As long as it is used according to standard operations, it will not cause harm to the human body and will not cause any food safety issues. Because naturally ripening fruits will produce ethylene themselves, but the fruit will only ripen when ethylene accumulates to a certain concentration. Later, in order to speed up the ripening of fruits, people began to study the use of exogenous ethylene to ripen fruits.

In ancient my country, the practice of using trace amounts of ethylene produced by burning incense to ripen fruit already existed. However, since ethylene is a gas, it is inconvenient to use, so in modern times, methods have been developed to use ethephon to produce ethylene to ripen fruits. Ethephon is a solid that releases ethylene when dissolved in water. Spraying or soaking fruits with its solution can accelerate the ripening of the fruits. It is very convenient, which is why fruit farmers prefer it.

Rumor: Ethephon can ripen children. Many people have probably heard the rumor that ethephon can ripen children. In fact, the physiological mechanisms of animals and plants are very different. Ethephon is a plant growth regulator, which is completely different from human hormones. Therefore, it cannot play a role in the human body at all, nor can it participate in the synthesis or regulation of hormones in the human body. Therefore, ethephon will only accelerate the ripening of fruits and will not make children "premature". Parents can rest assured about this.

Are ethephon products really absolutely safe? To say that ethephon is absolutely safe is not entirely true. There are many methods to produce ethephon. Some have very high requirements on raw material purity, some have very high requirements on equipment, some have very high requirements on operation, and of course there are also relatively economical and simple ones. The production method used by many domestic manufacturers is: direct addition of phosphorus trichloride and ethylene oxide. This method does not have high production requirements, so there will inevitably be some impurities in the product, which may contain ethylene oxide. What is ethylene oxide? It is a central nervous system depressant, stimulant and protoplasmic poison. Long-term exposure to small amounts may cause neurasthenia syndrome and autonomic nervous system disorders.

However, my country has strict limits on the amount of ethephon residues in food. Moreover, excessive ethephon not only increases costs, but also easily causes fruits to over-ripen and rot. No one is willing to add excessive amounts, so even if there are ethephon residues on fruits, it generally won't be a big problem.

However, for the health of yourself and your family, you should still wash the fruit thoroughly with clean water before eating it. After all, it is related to your body, so it is always better to be cautious.