Can you eat overnight spinach? Overnight vegetables have many harmful effects

Overnight vegetables are very harmful to our body, especially they produce nitrite. Overnight root vegetables produce even higher amounts of nitrite, such as common spinach, cabbage, peppers, etc. Therefore, we should reduce the storage time of these vegetables.

1. Under the same storage conditions, the amount of nitrite produced by different types of vegetables is inconsistent. Usually, stem and leaf vegetables are the highest, melon vegetables are slightly lower, and root vegetables and cauliflowers are in the middle. Therefore, if you buy different kinds of vegetables at the same time, you should eat the stems and leaves first, such as cabbage, spinach, etc. If you plan to cook more dishes and eat them hot the next day, you should try to cook less stem and leaf vegetables and choose melon vegetables.

Special note: At room temperature, spinach, cauliflower, beans, cabbage, and green peppers produce more nitrite when stored until the next day. The nitrite in spinach far exceeds that in other vegetables. Vegetables that produce less nitrite include tomatoes, lettuce, leeks, zucchini, eggplant, garlic sprouts, carrots, and celery.

2. How is nitrite, a deadly carcinogen, produced and what are its hazards?

Fried dishes contain oil and salt. After one night, the vitamins in the dishes are oxidized, causing the nitrite content to increase significantly. After entering the stomach, it turns into nitrite. Although nitrate is not a direct carcinogen, it is a major health hazard. After nitrite enters the stomach, under certain conditions it will generate a substance called NC (N-nitroso compound), which is one of the risk factors for gastric cancer. Especially when the weather is hot, overnight meals are contaminated by bacteria, which will multiply in large numbers and easily cause gastroenteritis and food poisoning.

3. Reheating leftovers may not necessarily reduce the harm

In daily life, people often reheat leftover food over and over again, thinking that this will prevent the food from spoiling. In fact, from a medical point of view, this view is not entirely correct. Because the toxins in some foods cannot be eliminated by heating alone.

Under normal circumstances, certain bacteria, viruses and parasites can be killed in a few minutes by heating at 100°C. But heating is powerless against chemical toxins released by bacteria in food. Not only does heating fail to destroy toxins, it sometimes increases their concentration. In addition, various green leafy vegetables contain different amounts of nitrates. Nitrates are non-toxic, but during the process of picking, transportation, storage and cooking of vegetables, nitrates will be reduced to toxic nitrites by bacteria. Especially for leftovers left overnight, the nitrite content will be higher after being salted overnight.

The toxicity of nitrite will increase after heating, and in severe cases it can cause food poisoning or even death. In addition, solanine contained in sprouted potatoes and aflatoxin contained in moldy peanuts cannot be destroyed by heating. Therefore, we must not think that leftovers can just be heated up. It is best to cook as much as you want to eat.

4. Aquatic products that are most likely to cause gastrointestinal diseases

People generally think that vegetables will not cause disease, but after being salted overnight, the nitrite content will increase, and the toxicity will increase after heating. Therefore, vegetables are the ones that should not be left overnight. In addition, starchy foods are best eaten all at once. Foods such as rice cakes can only be stored for a maximum of four hours, and eating them without changing their taste may cause adverse reactions.