Revealing the trick of ripening bananas "super fast" with toxic chemicals

In the past, banana traders had to wait a whole week to have ripe bananas to sell, but now they can turn hundreds of bunches of green or even immature bananas into golden yellow bananas overnight.

Bananas soaked in chemicals are bright yellow. Traders are arranging the bananas to sell.

After many days of infiltrating banana markets, the group of reporters witnessed the use of chemicals to ripen bananas. Every day, hundreds of bunches of bananas ripened quickly by chemicals are sold all over the Hanoi market. The fact that many fruit traders are abusing chemicals to ripen bananas is threatening the health of consumers.

Bananas ripen overnight

After many times of wandering around and asking around, we went to Phuc Tan banana market (Hoan Kiem, Hanoi) located on the Red River at the end of Ham Tu Quan street to buy bananas to sell. We got acquainted with B - the largest banana supplier here and B arranged for us a plot of land of more than 7 square meters to park motorbikes and gather bananas. According to the introduction, B currently supplies green bananas to more than 20 traders, most of which are from a ship owner named Hung, with a source in Ba Vi (Hanoi). Hung transports bananas here three times a week. "To avoid bananas from breaking and crushing, we buy whole bunches from the garden and transport them here to sell. When they come here, they ripen the bananas with chemicals," Hung said.

Phuc Tan banana market is considered one of the largest banana suppliers in Hanoi today. Here, there are about 30 traders, each of whom has planned for themselves a land area of ​​5 to 7 square meters to gather and grow bananas. Every afternoon at around 3:20 p.m., trains carrying bananas from Ba Vi, Lang Son... begin to arrive at the market, dozens of traders quickly get off the train to carry bananas ashore. The entire market, hundreds of square meters wide, is filled with the green and yellow colors of bananas.

Working for B, besides his wife, there were three other women. They divided the work among themselves. One arranged the bananas that had been picked the day before onto the cart, and another cut the green banana bunches that had just been carried into bunches. Carrying the last two bunches of bananas to the shore, B urged his wife: "Mix the retardant right away." While cutting the bananas, this woman quickly went down to the riverbank and carried two buckets of water. Another woman named Duyen took a finger-sized bottle of water, poured it into the bucket, and stirred it well. At that moment, they took each bunch of bananas, dipped them into the bucket, and then neatly stacked them in a corner.

After scooping water from the basin to water the bananas, they pour this water back into the barrel to continue watering the other banana bunches.

“Do you have to wash the bananas before soaking them?”, I asked. B burst out laughing at my rather “naive” question. “Do you think we have a lot of free time? Dipping them like that will make the bananas ripen faster. If you do business for a long time, I will teach you some secrets,” B said. Still surprised, I looked puzzled: “There must be some secret, waiting for all these bananas to ripen before selling them might take a whole week.” B patted me on the shoulder and said: “Do it now. Mix the medicine, dip the bananas in it and soak them quickly, from now until morning they will all be golden brown. If they are still as dirty as before, you will be better off eating porridge,” B taught the new trader.

Then B handed me a bottle of medicine, the bottle was written in Chinese without any instructions or manufacturing date... “This is a chemical, soak bananas in this medicine, the bananas will ripen quickly and turn a beautiful yellow color. Mix one bottle with about 30 to 40 liters of water, depending on your needs, if you want the bananas to ripen quickly, mix in less water, if you want them to ripen slowly, mix in more water. After dipping in water, put them in a corner, cover them with a cotton blanket and you will have ripe bananas to sell tomorrow morning. The whole market does this, but be careful not to let the workers catch you, if the buyers find out they will go hungry”, B advised me. According to B, bananas that are too old should not be used with too much medicine because when they ripen, the bananas will quickly become rotten, brittle and bruised.

Hanging around to learn from experience, I was told by Ms. Lien - a banana wholesaler here: Before, bananas were soaked in incense but it took a long time to ripen, and they also turned brown quickly. In recent years, banana ship owners from Lang Son came down to sell green bananas and gave me this medicine. "They transported green bananas down to sell to prevent them from breaking and spoiling. Using this medicine, there is no need to worry about choosing young or old bananas, just dip them in the incense water overnight and the next morning they will all be golden and ripe," Ms. Lien said.

According to Ms. Lien, in addition to dipping in a bucket, you can pour it into a spray bottle. Bananas can be cut into bunches or left whole and then scooped with water to water.

“So is it toxic? What if you eat it and get poisoned?”, I asked. Mrs. Lien laughed heartily and replied: “What is toxic? In recent years, I have not heard of anyone dying from eating bananas.” Standing next to her, B also added: “It is not toxic or dangerous, there is no need to worry, but doing it this way makes the bananas ripen beautifully and easy to sell.”

Chemically soaked bananas are sold everywhere.

According to our records, banana dipping with chemicals is openly used by traders right in the banana market. “Of course we are afraid, the police will fine us, the people will see who dares to buy. If a stranger comes in, we have to stop dipping bananas. And when they come in, we will know right away because we have people following them from the alley. When the police and journalists come to investigate, we will know right away, they often ask a lot, when asked, just say you don't know anything,” said Ms. H, a trader at the banana market.

It is not easy to buy banana dipping chemicals. Many traders said that this chemical is very difficult to buy. Most of them are brought back by banana traders from Lang Son, Ba Vi, Khoai Chau (Hung Yen) or sold to them. An unwritten rule in the banana market is that strangers can never buy the chemical. “Pharmaceuticals also sell pesticides, but they do not sell them to strangers. Which banana trader does not use chemicals? Only those who have been in business for a long time like us can buy them. We have chemicals for bananas, tomatoes, and all kinds of fruits. This chemical is bought from China. Now many people buy it and re-label it with Vietnamese characters to sell, partly to avoid detection by the police,” said B. According to our research, each bottle of chemical costs from 2,000 to 3,000 VND.

We went to several pesticide stores to buy some, but most of the drugstore owners shook their heads and said no, and many even scolded the buyers. However, when we played the role of a banana seller with old, shabby clothes, we received a different attitude from the drugstore owners. After a scrutinizing look, they not only took out the drugs to sell, but also promised to come back next time if they were short.

The chemical that banana traders use to spoil bananas

After being soaked, all of these bananas will be transported by traders to be sold all over the city. Following Ms. Huong - a long-time banana vendor around Dong Xuan market, we can see that bananas soaked with chemicals are very easy to sell. On average, Ms. Huong sells about 30 bunches of bananas per day, each bunch costs from 13,000 to 20,000 VND, depending on the type. "Bananas from any market are soaked like this, if they are not soaked in chemicals, how can they be ripe to sell. Buyers don't even notice, so why worry?", Ms. Huong said.

Most consumers do not know that the beautiful, yellow ripe bananas are due to chemicals. Those who do know say that they have not seen anyone get poisoned, so they still buy them. “In fact, the beautiful, yellow ripe bananas are not very tasty, they feel rough like boiled bananas,” said Ms. Tran Thi Dung, a resident of Hoang Mai district.

An official from the Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute (Gia Lam, Hanoi) said that the chemical used by banana traders to ripen bananas is very dangerous. If the chemical seeps into the bananas, the user will be very susceptible to poisoning, even severe poisoning that can be life-threatening. This type of chemical is not on the list of pesticides used in Vietnam.

According to dantri