How to tell whether cabbage has been sprayed with formaldehyde

Cabbage is a very common vegetable all year round. It can be made into a variety of delicious dishes. Cabbage has high nutritional value and does not make you gain weight after eating it. It is very popular among people. However, in order to ensure the safety of cabbage, many vegetable farmers mix formaldehyde and spray it on the cabbage, which causes great harm to people's health. So how can we tell whether the cabbage has been sprayed with formaldehyde? What should we do if we accidentally buy cabbage sprayed with formaldehyde? Let’s take a closer look below.

Formaldehyde may cause hepatic coma

Generally speaking, the preservation measure for spring cabbage during transportation is mainly refrigeration, that is, using mechanical refrigeration in refrigerators or putting ice cubes in the box. However, due to economic considerations, some unscrupulous vendors have adopted the harsh method of spraying formaldehyde. According to experts, formaldehyde does have an antiseptic effect and can be used to soak and disinfect seeds in agriculture at a concentration of only 0.1%-0.5%, but it has never been heard that formaldehyde can be used to spray mature cabbage.

Formaldehyde is a gas under normal conditions and is soluble in water. A 35%-40% formaldehyde aqueous solution is what we often call formalin solution.

Formaldehyde, a colorless, irritating gas with a strong odor, can damage human skin, respiratory tract and internal organs, and anesthetize the human central nervous system. After inhaling high concentrations of formaldehyde, it will cause serious irritation to the respiratory tract, causing edema, eye stinging, headache, etc., and may also cause bronchial asthma, or cause pulmonary edema, hepatic coma, kidney failure, etc. The World Health Organization believes that formaldehyde can cause deformities and tumor growth, and long-term exposure can also lead to gene mutations.

Remove formaldehyde and clean thoroughly

Currently, there are no hard indicators for formaldehyde detection in the detection of pesticide residues in large agricultural markets. It is recommended to pay attention when purchasing and selecting spring cabbage: spring cabbage sprayed with formaldehyde will have a distinct pungent and spicy feeling; if the cabbage has been left for a long time and is cut vertically in the middle, if the inside is rotten but the outside is not, it may have been sprayed with formaldehyde solution.

The above is how to determine whether cabbage has been sprayed with formaldehyde, as well as the harm of formaldehyde to the human body. I wonder if you understand it in detail? If you unfortunately buy cabbage that has been sprayed with formaldehyde, you can throw away the outer layers of leaves, remove some of the cabbage stalks, and soak the rest in water for a while. Because formaldehyde itself is soluble in water, soaking it for a long time and then rinsing it with running water may dilute the formaldehyde component.