I love my fruits, and reading this article about using calcium carbide to ripen fruits artificially is scary.
I had a bunch of queries.
Is there any easy way to determine if a fruit is artificially ripened? Especially calcium carbide?
I live in Bengaluru South, any sources where we can buy fruits without these chemicals?
@madhuchandan (Organic Mandya) @shashi (Akshaykalpa) tagging you here to see if you have any answers.
If we create a demand and little premium on the pricing, it will help Madhu and Shashi both.
Hi Nitin, You can grab your fruits from Farmizen - https://shop.farmizen.com - there is no artificial ripening done. Carbide of course, is illegal. But we don’t do ethylene chamber ripening as well - which pretty much is the industry norm everywhere, including organic channels, and is legal.
We do not do ethylene chamber ripening because when fruits are ripened with that external trigger, the sugars don’t develop well - and they don’t taste good. I don’t have access to a research report on the nutrition aspect of it - but its likely that the nutrition profile in artificially ripened fruit is sub-par as well.
That’s why most banana in the market tastes so bland. That’s why people love Farmizen mangos even if they are costlier, than elsewhere.
We tell consumers that they need to ripen the fruits at home - by keeping them in a box/brown paper bag etc and let it take time to ripen. This is not how people have got trained to buy fruit nowadays - so some consumers get upset by it, but we are OK only selling to consumers who are willing to understand why we do it like that.
When consumers try to let it ripen at home - 4 things can happen - 1. they may run out of patience 2. they may handle it incorrectly (put it into the fridge instead of letting it be on the countertop) 3. when ripening, it may develop a rot, especially if there is any wrong handling. 4. you have amazingly tasty fruit which reminds you of fruit from your own orchard, minus the chemical ripening. We hope to get more of #4 occurrences with Farmizens.
The easy way to identify is to trust your taste buds - if it tastes nice and flavourful and sweet - it has a higher probability of having been naturally ripened.
Natural ripening is the process by which fruits mature and develop their flavor, texture, and color over time, usually while still attached to the plant or tree. Artificial ripening, on the other hand, is the process of speeding up the ripening process by using chemicals, such as ethylene gas or calcium carbide.
Here are some ways to identify natural ripening vs artificial ripening:
In general, it’s best to choose fruits that have undergone natural ripening, as they will have the best flavor and nutritional content. If you suspect that fruit has been artificially ripened, it’s best to avoid it and choose another option.
@NithinKamath
OM doesn’t promote artificial ripening, you can get naturally ripened fruits at our store.
@NithinKamath, This is Deepak, founder/ CEO of GreenPod Labs. We’re an Agritech startup developing all-natural solutions to reduce fruit and vegetable spoilage in ambient conditions.
The use of different forms of Carbide has been happening for several years. The government has banned it for the last 10 years but still, people in the market are using it. There are a few ways how you can potentially detect if the fruit was ripened using carbide or not:
Natural ripening process starts from the flesh of the fruit and then eventually changes the color of the fruit. Carbide would happen vice-versa - it would change the color of the fruit first (traders would just sell it once the color changes). The color of the mango would be usually pale yellow. You can ask the vendor to cut a fruit that looks yellow and see if the flesh inside is fully ripened (color change and juicy flesh).
Carbide-ripened fruit will have zero to negligible flavor on them since the internal flavonoids are not formed yet. However, naturally ripened fruit will have a strong flavor/ smell to them
Happy to discuss further on this. At GreenPod Labs, we have developed products that can support the natural ripening process in mangoes and help traders transition from carbide and other harmful chemical sources.
@madhuchandan I remember growing up munching on the green coloured bananas (pachh baale) which I haven’t seen in the past 10 years I think. It’s only the yellow ones now… do you know what happened to them? They used to be my fav fruit. They used to be more sweet and crisp. The yellow ones now are lesser sweet and doughy. Remembered them when I saw these yellow ones with the brown spots.
These varieties are seldom grown now. The variety which you see these days is G-nain (Grand Nain - Wikipedia) and they are favored for their yield, keeping quality, disease resistance etc., by farmers.
Buy unripe fruits and vegetables as far as possible. Because that is what is transported easily without damage.
You would not have to depend on someone else to ripen these for you. Ex: There is no way that a farmer can leave a papaya to ripen on the tree. It will be consumed by birds and animals the moment it starts to sweeten. Same with most fruits. I wouldn’t want to buy fruits ripened on the tree by massacring the poor birds and animals which try to eat them.
Also, it is not possible to stack the ripened fruits and transport them without damage. Imagine a truckload of papayas which are ripe, stacked 10-15 feet deep.
There are simple ways to encourage ripening:
Wrap it up in paper or any other rag
Keep it with a ripe fruit/vegetable. Anything will do.
Keep it in a airtight container. Light and agarbathi inside the container and close the lid. Oxygen will be consumed. The agarbathi will go out, and natural ethylene will be concentrate and quicken the process
Depending on what you are ripening, choose the process. I am sure there are many other ideas as well.
I don’t think there is any easy way to differentiate - artificial ripened and natural ripened. Most of the solutions are super subjective. I really think a fundamental model can be trained for this use case. Any own building maybe Rainmatter might support that project. 
Suman, the point I make is that there is hardly any produce which is ripened on the tree and transported to the city because it is too fragile. There has been a lot of work done (for example, tomatoes have been changed to make the skin harder) but aren’t fruit soft by definition? If so, then how to transport it in large quantities economically? Not everything is as hardy as a watermelon/pumpkin. Even watermelons have a different shelf life if you keep it by itself and stack it on top of each other
Apologies, I was actually commenting on the thread, and I accidentally replied to your comment. Frankly, it was an independent reply not specific to you. 
You are right.
No apologies necessary, Suman. No offense taken, I thought that I had not put out my thoughts clearly and responded with a few more examples.
tl;dr: The best source for chemical free (pesticide, insecticide, ripening agents) fruits & veggies are small farmers selling at santhes. From south Bangalore your best bet will be the following santhes:
Bannerghatta Road – Bannerghatta village/bus stand – Tuesday
Anekal – near the main bus stand – Friday
Chandapura – near main bus stand – Saturday
Jigani – near the main bus stand of the industrial area – Sunday
Kanakapura Road – near BWSSB office – Saturday
The best time to go is around 8 - 9 a.m.
Santhes are generally found on outskirts of the city on the roads exiting Bangalore. I’ve personally at various times tried the santhes on Kanakapura road, Bannerghatta, Anekal, Jigani, Yeshwantpur, Magadi road (various points all the way till magadi), Singapura road (opp Aveksha Hospital), and found the fruits and vegetables full of flavour, and free of chemicals.
Most of these chemical free f&v are grown in backyards, small plots, or leftover farmland where it isn’t worth the cost to spray chemicals for these farmers and as such are free of chemicals. Most of these fruits & veggies also generally ripen on the vine and are harvested either morning of, or on the eve of the day of the sale, and as such are fresh.
On the other hand F&V in department stores, supermarkets, and local streetside vendors and shops originate in mandis (Kolar, Chikkabalapur, Kanakapura, Magadi, etc.) where farmers who grow these crops at scale sell. From mandis they either directly go to supermarkets or to the APMC yard or the F&V wholesale markets (Hosur road, Binnypet etc.) where they’re bought by local vendors. These f&v spend more time in the supply chain and are harvested days before sale, before they are fully ripe. Farmers growing at scale also use the necessary chemicals (pesticides) to be able to grow at scale and the middlemen and sellers use the artificial ripening agents to make them saleable.
