Presence of harmful heavy metals in red vegetables and some vegetables, pesticides in fruits

Experts say that harmful heavy metals are found in vegetables such as red cabbage and beans, cucumbers, radishes and potatoes. Not only vegetables, but also mango, litchi and other fruits have been found to contain pesticides. As a result, people's health problems are gradually increasing.

Although the effects of these heavy metals on the human food cycle are not immediately visible, they can cause serious health risks in the long run. But for that, without panicking about any particular crop or food product, the opportunity to spread poison at the source of food production should be stopped.

At the same time the use of fertilizers and pesticides should be made 'safe' to control heavy metals. It is also important to ensure that imported pesticides do not contain heavy metals.

On Monday (September 23), the results of studies on the presence of heavy metals in 9 vegetables and pesticide residues in 4 fruits were presented at a seminar organized by the Safe Food Authority in the capital.

Recently the professor of Bangladesh Agricultural University researched the level of chemicals in vegetables. Shafiqul Islam and Dr. Mohammad Ghulam Kibria. They collected 9 types of vegetables from the market. These included potatoes, brinjals, radishes, tomatoes, radishes, turnips, cabbages, cucumbers and beans.

Studies have shown that high levels of several chemicals including lead, chromium, cadmium have been found in these vegetables. However, in this list, the presence of heavy metal in the most harmful levels was found in Lalsha.

Bangladesh Safe Food Authority has conducted two separate studies to find out the presence of harmful substances in vegetables and fruits. These studies have found excessive amounts of chemicals and pesticide residues in vegetables.

Studies have shown that Lalsha has the highest amount of heavy metals like cadmium. While the maximum tolerable level of cadmium is 190 micrograms per kg, in Lalsha it was found to be 704.32 micrograms per kg. 275.66 micrograms per kg were found in brinjal, 349 micrograms in radish and 195 micrograms per kg in tomatoes. The highest presence of cadmium was found from the sample collected from Narayanganj.

Similarly, excessive presence of heavy metals such as chromium has been found in beans, cucumbers, radishes, potatoes and radishes. The presence of heavy metals like lead was found in 9 vegetables including eggplant, cabbage, beans, cucumber, radish, potato, tomato and red cabbage.

Meanwhile, 320 samples of mangoes, litchis, plums and guavas were tested for pesticide residues, and an average of 10 percent was found to contain harmful levels of pesticides.