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Recently, a secretly shot video has been circulating on the Internet, in which a farmer talks about how to make his citrus sweeter. .

It is mentioned that "cyclamate" needs to be injected, and many fruits need to be injected, including watermelons, oranges, grapefruits, oranges, etc.

What kind of cyclamate did she use? Will it be toxic? What other fruits can I eat in the future?

Food additive cyclamate

The scientific name of cyclamate is "cyclamate", which is a synthetic sweetener.

It is allowed to be used in China, the European Union, Hong Kong and other countries and regions, but not in the United States, Japan and other countries.

The human body cannot absorb it, and even if it is absorbed, it cannot be metabolized. Eventually it will be excreted intact, so it is very safe.

As a sweetener, it is widely used in beverages, cans, cakes and other foods, but fresh fruits are not allowed to be used.

How to apply sodium cyclamate to fruits

There are usually two understandings of "applying medicine" to fruits, one is spraying and the other is injection.

Injection is impossible. On the one hand, the needle holes left by the injection will become a channel for bacteria and mold to invade, and the fruit will easily rot.

On the other hand, injection cannot ensure that cyclamate is evenly distributed in the fruit, and it may also affect the taste.

For a solid fruit like watermelon, it is not easy to get the potion into it.

If it is spraying, it seems unlikely.

Cyclamate is water-soluble and almost insoluble in organic solvents. It is not easy to penetrate the waxy layer of fruit skin.

More importantly, even if it can be absorbed by spraying it on the surface, how to ensure that all the fruits of the tree are evenly absorbed?

Especially for fruits with thick skins like grapefruits and oranges, it is not as simple as you think to absorb and transfer from the skin to the pulp.

If you don’t believe it, you can try chewing the peel to see if the peel is also sweet. I guarantee you will be disappointed.

This cyclamate is not cyclamate

In fact, the "cyclamate" mentioned by the growers is most likely not the cyclamate of the food additive.

In the folk, XX element and XX essence are popular names, which refer to something that is efficient, powerful and quick-acting.

Because it can sweeten fruits, it is called cyclamate. In fact, its scientific name is sweetener and cyclamate. It is a plant growth regulator and a foliar fertilizer that is sprayed on the surface.

It is a technology first developed in developed countries in Europe and the United States, and has been used in agriculture decades ago.

There are many commercial products of this type, but the ingredients vary.

Common ones include polysaccharides or polysaccharides, trace elements such as boron, molybdenum, zinc, and manganese, rare earth elements (also commonly used as foliar fertilizers for tea), sodium thiosulfate, sodium sulfate, sodium sulfite, etc.

These things themselves are not sweet, but the principle is basically to achieve the purpose of increasing fruit yield, shortening the ripening cycle, and improving appearance quality by promoting plant metabolism and the synthesis and accumulation of nutrients.

Don’t use sweeteners for late-ripening fruits?

For the same fruit variety, fruits without sweeteners may ripen later, but this does not mean that late-ripening fruits do not need sweetening.

The maturity time of fruits and vegetables can be adjusted manually, such as sowing time, use of growth regulators, etc., but the most critical factor affecting the time to market of fruits and vegetables is the different varieties.

Take citrus as an example. If everyone’s tangerines mature and are put on the market at the same time, it will inevitably cause oversupply in the market and cannot be sold at a high price.

Therefore, people have gradually cultivated varieties that mature at different times. Through "staggered commuting", the supply cycle of citrus can be extended, and the price can also be relatively stable, so as not to cause low fruit prices and hurt farmers. .

So it is just wishful thinking that late-ripening fruits do not need sweeteners at all.

Why are the fruits we eat so sweet?

Sweetness means sugar and energy. Human beings’ pursuit of sweetness is deeply rooted in genes. This is an animal instinct in the process of evolution. .

Because everyone loves sweetness so much, fruit breeding continues to develop in the direction of bigger and sweeter fruits.

Through the selection and breeding of generations of agricultural science and technology personnel, fruits have become sweeter and sweeter. Even corn and potatoes have developed sweet varieties (not genetically modified).

If the fruit has no sour taste, it means there is something wrong with it, and the agricultural science and technology personnel will really faint from tears.

However, as the saying goes, everyone has their own preferences for radish and green vegetables, and there is no market for sour fruits. Some people like sour fruits.

There is a very vivid joke about an elder sister who went to buy oranges and asked the vendor "Are these oranges sweet?" The vendor enthusiastically replied, "It's very sweet, not sour at all." Forget it, I like to eat sour food."

It is true that fruits are treated with sweeteners

The possibility of using sweeteners (such as saccharin and cyclamate) in the planting process is almost non-existent, but it is still possible in the intermediate circulation and sales process. Possibly, such as the famous "saccharin dates".

Unfortunately, soaking dates in saccharin water is of no use. This is just a trick of the vendors. Saccharin has difficulty penetrating the dense date skin, so it only sweetens the outer layer.

The red dates are not because of saccharin, but because of warm water.

Similarly, some vendors will spray saccharin water on fruits such as bayberries and mulberries to sweeten them, which is also a trick. If you taste it on the spot, it may be sweeter. When you take it home and wash it with water, the saccharin will be gone.

Therefore, it is recommended that you buy less from roadside vendors. Although there is nothing wrong with it, it does not feel good to be cheated.

Don’t believe everything the farmers say

Finally, what I want to tell you is, don’t think that secretly filmed videos are the truth.

No matter what they say, they actually know it but don’t know why. Rumors like contraceptives on cucumbers and contraceptives on seedless grapes also come from them.

How did spreading rumors come about? It’s because the people who spread the rumors believed it themselves.

Well, I will just keep silent and watch you continue to pretend~~