A video by 101 India showcased the horrifying scam on vegetables in India where farmers would apply chemicals on vegetables to make them look fresher and bigger.
In the video that has since garnered over 11 million views, a farmer reveals the actual practice of such scam and admits to doing these horrendous distortion of crops.
“We pick the vegetables from our farms and put them in a tank. Then we apply color and send them off to market.”
In the 3 minute video, he demonstrated the various techniques in making the vegetables look large and fresh.
Firstly, they would apply silicone spray which helps slow down the ripening process. Then, they would dump the vegetables in an industrial green dye!
“When vegetables get left over at the end of the day, we spray them so they look shiny and fresh.”
“Then we mostly use artificial color on green vegetables. Ridge gourd, lady fingers, pointed gourds, beans. We mix green color in these and they appear fresh.”
The disgusting dye is actually used for textiles and it ‘help’ makes the vegetables exterior look a hue of vibrant green.
The terrifying part about this repulsive coloring is that it forms free radicals in the body which could affect the liver and kidneys.
But the horror doesn’t stop there. These farmers even use hormones to speed up the growth of certain vegetables! They would use a syringe and inject those hormones into individual veggies.
“We use medicines easily available at medical stores. We inject the bottle gourd at night and by morning it becomes bigger in size.”
These deathly hormone injections are actually banned in crops. Hormones like Oxytocin are only allowed to be used in animals and not on plants.
Although a lot of consumers have become more aware of such things going on and have become more careful about the fresh looking vegetables, these tricky farmers always found a way to counter it.
“Customers sometimes even say fresh vegetables are bad and don’t buy them. That’s why we mixed both (the dyed and non-dyed veggies) and sell them.”
As somewhat a ‘justification’ for himself, the farmer mentioned that dyeing and injecting these crops is a normal practice by all farmers.
“We are not the only ones doing this, everyone who is in the business does it.”
“We don’t think we are doing anything wrong.”
To further vindicate himself, the farmer explained that they have no other choice.
“We have been doing this for the past 8-10 years. Inflation is rising, we have to sustain our livelihood and feed our children.”
Watch the appaling video here:
Also watch: Horrifying Video Shows Vietnamese Traders Injecting Chemicals Into Prawns For Export
