Nitrates are salts of nitric acid. They are in every living organism, therefore their presence in the human body is absolutely natural and does not cause any harm. But an excess of such substances is hazardous to health. Basically, nitrates enter the body from plant products, primarily from vegetables. Therefore, it is important to know how to distinguish healthy vegetables from nitrate ones.
How to determine the naturalness of vegetables
First of all, you need to track seasonality. If the season, for example, of tomatoes, has not yet arrived, and you see them on the shelves, then they are imported. And to increase their shelf life, nitrates are added to them. Find out about the length of the harvest seasons in your country and don't be fooled.
Chemicals are added to vegetables to maintain their appearance. So if the food looks unnaturally flawless, fresh, and strong, it probably won't do you any good.
Remember that midges and flies are attracted only by the aroma of natural products, so they completely ignore nitrate products.
How not to be mistaken when choosing vegetables
When choosing tomatoes, pay attention to their color. If they have an orange tint, then they were grown using fertilizers. Then taste the tomato. Press with your finger: if the skin has not burst and is left with a dent from the finger, most likely the product is full of nitrates.
Sometimes tomatoes are sold directly on the twigs. Chemical tomatoes remain beautiful and fresh, they do not come off the branch, even if they start to rot inside.
When choosing cucumbers, run your hand over their surface. Soft, thin, easily washable spikes indicate the naturalness of the product. Rough thorns and dark green skin means that the cucumbers were grown on a nitrate plantation. If there is no smell, you should not buy cucumbers either.
Journalists conducted a special experiment, during which it turned out that most cucumbers on the modern market and in supermarkets are odorless, and therefore tasteless.
When choosing carrots, pay attention to the color. Natural completely orange, it is devoid of green and yellow blotches.
When choosing cabbage, do not assume that black dots and spots on it indicate the absence of nitrates. In contrast, dark spots on the leaves are a fungus that appears precisely on nitrate vegetables.
Feel the head of cabbage. Natural leaves are usually dense. The base of the leaves at the stalk should not be thick.
Potato tubers grown without added chemicals are also recognizable by their appearance and touch. Potatoes with green spots indicate that the tubers have been in the sun for too long. These spots are a sign of the presence of the poisonous toxin solanine, produced in plants and very dangerous to human health even in small doses.
Natural potatoes should be firm and firm. Tubers, which contain a lot of pesticides and nitrates, look smooth and even, and they are quite soft to the touch.
When you press on the potatoes with your fingernail, you should hear a crunch. If the nail enters the tuber without sound, it means that such a potato was grown on mineral and nitrogen fertilizers.
