Many Internet celebrity food stores have "turned over", these 5 types of food are very dangerous after spoiling

Key Points

★ Even if part of the fruit is rotten, do not eat the rest of it.

★ Do not eat potatoes that have sprouted severely or whose degree of sprouting cannot be determined!

★ Except for fresh and quick-frozen crabs, crabs that have died at room temperature are very likely to cause biogenic amine poisoning.

★ If you accidentally eat nuts that have a rancid or moldy or bitter taste, spit them out immediately and rinse your mouth immediately!

★ Fungus that has been soaked for a long time must not be eaten.

Some time ago, #杨国福华莱士蜜雪冰城等被颁# became a hot search, involving many Internet celebrity food brands. For example, the recently popular "蜜雪冰城" was exposed to use expired ingredients, "奈雪的茶", a must-have for many people to take photos and check in, was exposed to use rotten fruit, "胖哥俩肉蟹煲" was exposed to use overnight dead crabs, and "小龙坎火锅" was exposed to use fake duck blood processed by black workshops...

The picture comes from the Internet

In life, many businesses use the slogan of "fresh ingredients" to attract consumers, but there are still many unscrupulous vendors who use expired or even spoiled ingredients to save costs. Unscrupulous businesses pursue profits blindly, sell inferior products as good ones, harm consumers, and ignore consumers' health. This phenomenon must be severely punished and market supervision and management must be strengthened.

As a consumer, you should also understand that eating expired food can cause many health hazards! Especially the following 5 kinds of food, if they are obviously spoiled, you must throw them into the trash without hesitation!

01Don’t eat rotten fruit, even if it’s a little rotten

In our daily life, many people adhere to the principle of "not wasting food". When they see that a good fruit is partially rotten, they are reluctant to throw it away, so they cut off the spoiled part and continue to eat it.

The rotten fruit we are talking about is common in the following two situations. One is local tissue damage caused by frostbite or bumps. This kind of fruit can be eaten, but it should be eaten as soon as possible. Over time, these parts are prone to breed bacteria. The other is because the fruit has been left for too long, causing mold to grow and produce fungal toxins. It is not recommended to continue eating this kind of fruit even after the moldy part is peeled off.

When fruits rot and spoil, they will produce and accumulate a lot of fungal toxins, and these toxins will also exist in the surrounding tissues of the rotten parts to varying degrees. For example, when fruits such as apples, pears, and peaches rot and spoil, the amount of patulin in them will gradually increase. This toxin is a neurotoxin that can cause acute/chronic food poisoning in consumers, and may cause food poisoning symptoms such as nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. It is also teratogenic and carcinogenic. [1]

Gansu Agricultural University has conducted a more detailed study on patulin in rotten apples. The results show that the larger the area of ​​rotten apples, the higher the patulin content. Patulin also diffuses into the surrounding tissues of the apples. The farther away from the rotten part, the lower the patulin content, and the closer the distance, the higher the content. The content also increases with the increase in the diameter of the rotten part. [2]

Patulin in rotten apples will spread almost throughout the apple, so the best way to deal with rotten fruit is to throw it away. If you don't want to "waste food", buy less and buy more frequently, and eat it as soon as possible while it is fresh.

02 Sprouted potatoes must be discarded if they are seriously sprouted

It is very common for potatoes to sprout, and some people will choose to dig out the sprouts and continue to eat them. However, over the years, there have been many cases of poisoning from eating sprouted potatoes. From a health and safety perspective, once potatoes sprout, you need to be extra vigilant. Potatoes that sprout severely or whose degree of sprouting cannot be determined should not be eaten!

Examples:

▲News screenshot

Solanine is a toxic glycoside alkaloid. In normal potatoes that have not sprouted, the content of solanine is very low. The longer the storage time, the higher the content of this toxin. After the potatoes sprout, the solanine content will increase greatly.

Ingesting very small amounts of solanine is not toxic to the human body, but ingesting 200 mg of solanine at a time can cause poisoning, and in severe cases, it can be fatal. [3] What is the concept of 200 mg of solanine? It is equivalent to about 30 grams of potatoes that have turned green or sprouted (about the amount of two thumbs).

If the potatoes have just started to sprout, solanine is only present near the sprouts, especially in the potato skin. At this time, you can peel the potatoes and shave off a thick layer around the sprouting area, trying to dig out as much as possible. The remaining part can still be eaten.

Steaming or boiling can be used more often when cooking, because the glycoalkaloid content of potatoes can be reduced by 65% ​​in steam, while boiling can reduce it by more than 80%. Soaking potatoes in a vinegar-water solution during the cooking process can also reduce the solanine content. [3, 4]

In addition, potatoes must be kept away from light in daily life, because ultraviolet rays can more easily promote the production of solanine.

03 Don't eat dead crabs. Be careful of poisoning.

People who love to eat crabs know that when buying crabs, you must choose fresh ones, because dead crabs not only taste bad, but can also be fatal if eaten.

This is not an exaggeration, but a real case: in 2015, the Department of Neurology at Renhe Hospital of China Three Gorges University admitted a patient who had food poisoning after eating dead river crabs. The patient died on the day of admission after failed rescue efforts. [5]

Crabs like to eat dead fish, dead shrimp and other rotting animal carcasses in the water. There are a lot of pathogens inside and outside the crabs. After death, the bacteria in the crabs' bodies will multiply rapidly and decompose the crab meat, which will not only make the taste worse, but also reduce the total amino acid content and increase the toxic biogenic amine content sharply. The quality of the crabs will deteriorate, and once eaten by humans, it will cause poisoning.[6]

You may not know what biogenic amines are. They are actually a class of nitrogen-containing organic compounds that are normally active ingredients in organisms. Appropriate amounts of biogenic amines are not only non-toxic, but also have certain physiological effects, such as regulating biological activity and controlling blood pressure. However, excessive intake of biogenic amines may lead to poisoning. For example, histamine, which is well known to everyone, is a type of toxic biogenic amine. It exists in spoiled fish. Oral intake of 8 to 40 mg will cause mild poisoning, while more than 100 mg will cause severe poisoning [6].

In the body of a dead crab, histamine increases very quickly and cannot be removed even after high temperature heating. This is also the main reason for poisoning after eating dead crabs. Someone once did an experiment: after the hairy crabs died and were placed at room temperature for 3 hours, the histamine content in the body increased from 3mg/100g to 6mg/100g, and then gradually increased to 7mg, 8mg... This amount can already cause mild poisoning in people.

Therefore, if you find that the crab you bought is dead, it is best not to eat it for safety reasons, unless it is freshly dead and cooked immediately. However, in real life, we often cannot accurately judge the time of death of crabs, so it is better not to eat it. After all, delicious food is precious, but life is more valuable!

In addition, it should be noted that quick-frozen crabs are edible because they are quickly frozen while they are alive to kill them, and then stored in an environment of minus 18 degrees Celsius. There is no problem with safety and you can eat them with confidence.

04 Moldy nuts with a bitter smell should be spit out

Have you ever had this experience: you cracked a melon seed with great anticipation, only to find that it tasted rancid or even moldy and bitter? Most people would eat a few more immediately to suppress the taste. Don't do this again!

Nuts generally contain high levels of unsaturated fatty acids. If they are stored for too long or in an improper way, they will easily oxidize and become rancid, and the taste will deteriorate. In addition, the rancidity process will produce peroxides and free radicals that are harmful to the human body, promote aging, and endanger health.

Some nuts may be contaminated by aflatoxin and become moldy due to improper storage, and they will taste moldy and bitter. You must "resolutely not eat" such nuts because they are likely to be contaminated by aflatoxin, which is carcinogenic and poses a great threat to health.

Aflatoxin is a highly toxic substance. How toxic is it? Potassium cyanide should be familiar to everyone. In movies and TV series, spies often hide it in their teeth and use it to commit suicide when their identities are exposed. This shows that potassium cyanide is already very toxic. Aflatoxin is 10 times more toxic than potassium cyanide! Aflatoxin is also carcinogenic to the liver. Even if consumed in small amounts over a long period of time, it will increase the risk of liver cancer. Moreover, normal cooking temperatures such as steaming and boiling cannot destroy aflatoxin.

Therefore, do not eat nuts that have gone bad! If you accidentally put a rancid or moldy taste in your mouth, the best thing to do is to spit it out immediately and rinse your mouth immediately!

05Be careful of soaking black fungus for too long as it may be poisonous!

Here is another case: On July 31, 2018, a villager in a certain district of Jinhua City suffered from food poisoning, which was suspected to be caused by eating black fungus that had been soaked for too long. A total of three people were poisoned, and one died after failed rescue efforts. [7]

The key reason for the poisoning incident was that the parties used black fungus that had been soaked for three days to make Chinese cabbage and fungus fried rice and cold black fungus. During the long soaking process, the fungus would breed toxic Pseudomonas and produce fumonisin toxin.

Fumonisin is highly toxic to humans and animals and is the main toxin that causes food poisoning and death. It can cause toxic hepatitis, and in severe cases can cause multiple organ failure and even death. Due to its strong toxicity, there is no specific antidote.

Therefore, black fungus that has been soaked for a long time should never be eaten. So how long should black fungus be soaked to be safe? It is recommended to control it within 4 hours, and the water temperature should not be too high. Generally, 30°C is the most suitable temperature. Experiments have shown that if black fungus is soaked for more than 6 hours, cracks will appear on the edges, which seriously affects the quality of the fungus and makes it more susceptible to microbial contamination. [8]

Summarize:

Food safety is no small matter. You need to be vigilant when any food goes bad. It can cause diarrhea and vomiting at the least and endanger your life at the worst. The safest way is to throw all the spoiled food into the trash. When buying food, buy less and buy more frequently. Don't buy too much at one time to avoid increasing the risk of spoilage.

References:

[1] Wang Meng, Jiang Nan, Dai Ying, et al. Analysis of limits and detection methods of fruit fungal toxins at home and abroad [J]. Journal of Food Safety and Quality, 2016, 7(02):459-467.

[2] Liu Huafeng, Han Shunyu, Sheng Wenjun, Zhu Xia, Jiang Yumei. Study on the distribution of patulin in rotten apples[J]. Food Science, 2010, 31(07): 51-53.

[3]Xu Minhui, Liu Kewei, Zhang Xiaohui, et al. Research progress of solanine in potatoes[J]. Freshness and Processing, 2017, 017(001):112-116,121.

[4] Wu Yashuai, Han Xuan, Zou Youyang, Wang Zongyi, Zhu Jingxin, Gao Xiuzhi. Research on effective methods to remove solanine from potatoes[J]. Journal of Food Safety and Quality, 2020, 11(05): 1514-1519. [5] Wang Yingrui, Zhang Yushi. Report on a case of death after eating dead river crabs[J]. Journal of Rare Diseases, 2015, v.22;No.113(06):65-66.

[6] Liu Xiaoli, Peng Huanhuan, Zhao Jiangtao, Xia Xiudong, Liu Yuan, Zhou Jianzhong. Study on the changes of biogenic amines and quality of crabs under different storage conditions[J]. Food Engineering, 2017(04):27-30+53.

[7] Shentu Pingping, Zhu Jiahui, Xu Xiaomin, Lü Gongjin, Wang Cuirong, Tao Zhenyang. Investigation of a food poisoning case caused by Pseudomonas cocovenenans subspecies fermented rice flour[J]. Shanghai Preventive Medicine, 2019, 31(06): 466-468+478.

[8] Ma Yinpeng, Du Boda, Zhang Jiechi, et al. Study on factors affecting the expansion rate of black fungus[J]. Edible Fungi, 2017, 39(004):62-65.

Author | Xue Qingxin, member of Chinese Nutrition Society, registered dietitian, registered nutrition technician, health manager, public nutritionist

Review | Sun Licui, Researcher, Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

This article was first published on Science Refutes Rumors