If you love this striped berry, then this is the season when you can eat your fill.
1. Choose
It is possible to accurately learn to choose a ripe watermelon only with the help of practice or…. intuition.
- Some characteristics of maturity, such as color, depend on the variety. So, the most common "Astrakhan striped" watermelon will be ripe if the difference between light and dark stripes near the tail is pronounced, and "Volga" is considered ripe if its skin becomes light.
- If you don't want to bother looking at the colors, pay attention to the size: there cannot be enough delicious watermelon. Therefore, at a glance, determine the average size of the watermelon in the batch in front of you, and choose the one that will be slightly larger. Do not take huge watermelons, it is quite possible that they were pretty fed with fertilizers.
- If you like all sorts of weird theories, try choosing a watermelon based on the "boy" or "girl" principle. It is believed that the "boys" have a convex part on which the tail is located, and the circle itself with a tail is small. In "girls" this part of the "body" is flat, and the circle with a tail is large, almost as large as a five-ruble coin. It is also believed that "girls" are tastier and sweeter, they have fewer seeds.
- It's good if the watermelon has a mesh or brownish dry lines on the sides, it will surely turn out to be ripe and tasty.
- You can also try piercing the skin with your fingernail. With a ripe watermelon, nothing will come of it, its rind is very hard.
2. Caution!
If you think that it is too early to buy Russian watermelons in early August, then you are right. Most varieties reach ripeness by mid or even late August. Anything sold earlier is likely either not mature enough or has been generously fertilized to accelerate growth.
The main signs of determining that a watermelon is "stuffed" with nitrates:
- Such a watermelon cannot be stored for a long time. Round spots of a darker shade appear on the skin.
- When you cut it open, you will see bright red flesh and white seeds, and the fibers will be yellow in color.
- In the pulp, there can be compacted lumps up to 2 cm in size and yellowish - they concentrate harmful substances.
- The pulp of a healthy watermelon, if pounded in a glass of water, will make the water only slightly cloudy, but if this watermelon is with nitrates, the water will turn pink or red.
3. How dangerous are nitrates?
According to doctors, no one has yet died from nitrate poisoning, but you can get in trouble. If you eat one or two slices of nitrate watermelon, then you will not get anything. If you get carried away and eat the whole watermelon, you can get liver problems, intestinal or nervous system upset. If after a nice meal you feel unwell, then immediately call an ambulance.
By the way, invisible nitrates are not as scary as bacteria that settle on the surface during transportation and storage. Therefore, before cutting, be sure to thoroughly wash the fruit, for greater effect, you can even scald it, it will not harm the watermelon.
Interesting to know
In the pulp of a ripe watermelon, readily digestible glucose and fructose predominate, sucrose accumulates if the fruit is stored for a long time. Watermelons can be eaten with diabetes mellitus, since the fructose contained in it does not cause insulin stress.
