Abstract
Fruit ripening is a natural process in which fruits go through various physical and chemical changes and gradually become sweet, coloured, soft and palatable. However, in recent years, the use of chemical agents as artificial fruit ripening agents has become prevalent mostly due to the commercial purposes without recourse to their health effects. Calcium carbide is one of such chemicals that is used in ripening fruits because of its cheapness and availability but at the same time it poses lots of potential health problems to health. The aim therefore was to determine the effect of the compound on the nutritional quality and hence otherwise any health effects of consuming such fruits. In this study, Banana fruits of Musa spp were purchased from vendors at station market Kaduna and were subjected to artificial ripening using various concentrations of calcium carbide(0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 M. and adopting similar techniques used by the vendors The result of the proximate analysis revealed that moisture content ranged between(71.52% -74.54%), ash content (0.815% -1.185%), fats content (0.47% - 3.21%), crude protein content (3.33%-2.63%) as well as carbohydrates content (23.67% - 18.44%). The effect of the calcium carbide is the exposure of the fruit to higher moisture content which leads to spoilage and degradation on the nutritional quality of the Banana fruits. However, at lower concentration of the calcium carbide same period of ripening was achieved without much effects on the fruits. The results of the elemental analysis revealed the concentration of Arsenic as (0.010mg/kg-0.071mg/kg) and Phosphorous as (194.50mg/kg- 231.00mg/kg).The values for Arsenic were found to be within the tolerable limit of FAO standard but for Phosphorous the values were higher than the standard and this could be from the fertilisers used for cultivation. The findings indicates that ripening of Banana fruits ( Musa spp) with higher concentration of Calcium carbide pose a great potential health dangers to consumers especially to the nervous system and must therefore be legislated.
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