Perfect veggies full of hazards

NEW DELHI Watch out before you chomp on shiny, green, leafy vegetables — thought of as nutritional powerhouses. These may not be so healthy after all.
Nowadays, the market is flooded with vegetables injected with oxytocin (also known as love hormone) and there is a possibility that eating such vegetables may cause nervous breakdowns, sterility and neurotic complications, cancers, low blood pressure and birth defects in pregnant women.
The health and family welfare ministry (MoHFW) has issued a warning against consuming vegetables injected with oxytocin. The chemical is injected into fruits and vegetables by farmers to help vegetables grow faster. Oxytocin is a hormone that also acts as a neurotransmitter to the brain. It is used clinically to induce labour, control bleeding after delivery and stimulate secretion of breast milk.
Oxytocin is most commonly injected in pumpkin, watermelon, brinjal, gourd and cucumber to make them look perfect, ripe and unnaturally healthy. It is a Schedule-H drug banned in India for use on animals, leave alone vegetables.
"These hormones may cause irreparable damage to our health, if taken through these vegetables, over a period of time. The drug is so cheap and readily available and the implementation of the ban is so lax," said minister of state MoHFW Dinesh Trivedi.
He also highlighted use of chemicals like copper sulphates for colouring fruits and vegetables. "The adverse effects of these toxins are being investigated. Both these hazardous chemicals and their use needs to be urgently monitored and looked into immediately," the minister said.