On occasion of Eat Your Vegetables Day June 17
National meet of experts will be held in New Delhi on June 26 to form policy on vegetables.
Cases of food poisoning and deaths have been registered in various parts of the country due to consumption of bitter bottle gourd. As a result Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is mulling guidelines for vegetable consumers. A national level expert committee is to meet in New Delhi on June 26 to formulate the policy.
Some vegetables have a natural substance that has the potential to turn toxic. Experts say one must not consume bitter bottle gourd, cucumber, squash, pumpkin, brinjal and melon. These vegetables, which are considered one of the healthiest, belong to the cucurbitaceae family. The tetracyclic triterpinpoid cucurbitacins compounds are responsible for the bitterness and are highly toxic.
A 1.2 mg dose of these toxic compounds is capable of killing a mouse. It can cause humans to vomit blood, said Dr Shravan Bohra, chief gastroenterologist at Apollo Hospitals, Ahmedabad and secretary of Gujarat Society of Gastroenterology.
Higher levels of cucurbitacins compounds are triggered by high temperature, wide temperature swings and also due to improper storage of vegetables.
Other factors can be excessive use of chemical fertiliser or pesticides. The major precautions that one needs to take before consuming vegetables is to check their taste, smell and thoroughly wash them with warm water before use.
Bohra, a national vegetable expert said, “After a case of bottle gourd poisoning was treated in Ahmedabad last year with symptoms of swelling and bleeding in the upper small intestine and liver and vomiting of blood, such cases were also reported from Mumbai, New Delhi and Rajasthan. The cases have raised a national alarm.”
Last year in March, a case of bottle gourd poisoning came to Apollo Hospital. KL Dargar, 60, from Mehsana,was admitted to the hospital’s emergency unit. Dargar, who had been drinking a glass of bottle gourd juice on an empty stomach every morning for the last 20 years, collapsed after he drank just 50 ml of the bitter juice. He had to be treated in the ICU for five days.
