Don't eat it! Don't eat it!

Cold and dry winter

Sweet and juicy sugar cane

Especially popular in this season

But friends who want to eat sugarcane recently

You have to be careful.

Once sugarcane encounters the following conditions

Absolutely not eatable!

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Sugarcane is usually

It is available around the Mid-Autumn Festival every year.

The products will be sold out around the Qingming Festival of the following year.

During transportation and storage

It is easy to mold and produce toxins

Therefore, food poisoning caused by eating moldy sugarcane

Mostly occurs in early spring

The peak period for the disease is from February to March.

It's not the sugarcane itself that's poisonous

But moldy and discolored

“Red Heart” or “Black Heart” Sugarcane

Will eating moldy sugarcane lead to death? Moldy sugarcane produces a neurotoxin, which is a toxic metabolite of a few species of Penicillium and Aspergillus, called 3-nitropropionic acid. Once it enters the human body, it is absorbed and the disease develops rapidly, usually within a dozen minutes to a dozen hours.

In a short period of time, it causes damage to the central nervous system, leading to cerebral edema, headache, convulsions, stiff limbs, feet like chicken claws, and dilated pupils in severe cases; severe cases can lead to ischemia and respiratory failure and death. Some patients poisoned by sugarcane toxins also have sequelae such as language and movement disorders. There is a folk saying that "Qingming sugarcane is more poisonous than snakes." It is worth noting that as long as sugarcane is moldy, whether it is before or after Qingming Festival or in other seasons, it will cause poisoning.

Cut off the moldy part

Can the remaining sugar cane be eaten? **** It is not recommended to eat sugar cane that is soft, discolored, smells like wine, has hair, or has a red heart .

Many people think that it is okay to cut off the moldy part of the sugarcane and eat the rest. In fact, this is a fatal misunderstanding. After the bacteria invade the sugarcane, the hyphae can extend. Even if the moldy part is cut off, the remaining sugarcane will contain a large amount of toxins that are invisible to the naked eye.

Is sugarcane juice still drinkable? If the sugarcane is moldy, it may produce toxins. Such sugarcane juice may contain higher amounts of toxins and the risk of poisoning is greater. Therefore, it is best not to drink the "finished sugarcane juice" that has been squeezed. Of course, if the sugarcane is fresh and not moldy, it is fine to buy freshly squeezed sugarcane juice.

How to choose good sugarcane?

1. Look at the appearance and center part

Sugarcane with a black, red, smooth, and white frost-covered skin is relatively fresh. If the sugarcane has a poor color, has flocculent or fuzzy white matter at the end, and has reddish-yellow, brown-brown, or dark blue spots on the cross section after cutting, it means it has gone moldy. Don't buy such sugarcane!

2. Feel the hardness

Fresh sugarcane is hard, while moldy sugarcane is soft. If the texture of sugarcane is soft, you should pay attention.

3. Identify whether there is any odor

The juice squeezed from normal sugarcane is sweet and refreshing, with the unique fragrance of sugarcane. If it smells sour, moldy, or wine lees, it means it has deteriorated and such sugarcane cannot be eaten.

What if you eat moldy sugarcane?

How to deal with it? Let's see~