Beans and fried plantain (popularly referred to as “dodo”) is a delicious meal that every average Nigerian relishes. The combination leaves one longing for more. However, its sweetness or deliciousness does not equate to being healthy. Every organ in the human body benefits from properly combined meals. But when food is wrongly combined, some health abnormalities arise. The liver is often the first hit. In some cases, it could lead to death or serious illnesses.
A popular user on X (formerly known as Twitter) with the handle had explained on his page why the combination of beans and fried plantain may not be healthy. In fact, he said that it is considered food poison. According to him, cooking food like beans with unripe plantain has no problem. It is even a perfect combination that makes digestion easier. Nonetheless, when it ripens, the same plantain becomes fruit. The dynamics of its digestion and absorption into the body completely changes.
Combining both foods could be called delicious poison.
Essentially, fire turns the plantain’s sweetness (known as fructose) highly acidic. “When fruits are damaged by fire, they become poison to the body,” he said. The liver ultimately suffers. The problem is that beans take between five to seven hours to digest properly and leave the stomach. On the other hand, ripe plantains take just three hours. As he explained, no fruit digests in the stomach but in the terminal ileum, while beans digest in the stomach.
Unfortunately, ripe plantain does not need pancreatic enzymes to digest, while beans do. As a result, when they are combined, the ripe plantain tries to leave the stomach to travel to the terminal ileum where it digests. The beans that it has been combined with will not allow it. As such, the struggle goes on for a long time. Then, fermentation takes place. This is why it becomes poisonous to the body. The user, thus, advised everyone to avoid cooking, baking, frying or boiling ripe plantain. He advised that it should be eaten raw.
NAFDAC also warns against fruits ripened with chemicals.
Meanwhile, at a workshop organized on the dangers of drug hawking and ripening of fruits with calcium carbide, the director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) had recently issued a statement on the danger of consuming fruits ripened with chemicals. Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye had said that the agency has noticed the dangerous practice and is doing everything within their power to curtail it. According to the NAFDAC boss, consuming fruits such as mango, banana, plantain, guava, orange, grape, etc., or any other fruits ripened with the chemical is dangerous to health.
While fruits provide the body with micronutrients that improve immunity and prevent diseases, they can be ingested alongside some harmful chemicals when they are ripened using this chemical. According to Adeyeye, when calcium carbide is sprayed with water, it reacts chemically to produce acetylene, a dangerous chemical used industrially. All indications have revealed that this chemical is not safe for human consumption in any form, whether directly or indirectly. It contains impurities such as arsenic, lead particles, phosphorus, etc., that pose several very serious health hazards, such as cancer, and heart, kidney or liver failure.
The NAFDAC boss reassured of ridding Nigeria of harmful food and medicine.
Adeyeye re-affirmed at the workshop that NAFDAC was determined to rid the country of substandard and falsified medicines, unwholesome foods, corrosive cosmetics, and other substandard regulated products. The agency has deployed a multifaceted approach in response to the problem. The agency will employ sensitization campaigns and enforcement activities, as well as other means to tackle the issue. This warning was one of those that the NAFDAC director had issued in the last few months regarding harmful consumer products.
