What is baby cabbage? How to avoid buying baby cabbage with formaldehyde

Baby cabbage, also known as miniature Chinese cabbage, is a new vegetable variety introduced in China. It has become popular in China in recent years. It looks the same as Chinese cabbage, but its size is only one-fourth to one-fifth of that of Chinese cabbage. It belongs to the cruciferous vegetable family and is like a miniature version of Chinese cabbage, so it is called baby cabbage. Today's article mainly shares with you how to avoid buying baby cabbage with formaldehyde.

Contents of this article

1. What is baby cabbage?

2. How to avoid buying baby cabbage containing formaldehyde

3. How to wash away formaldehyde and other drugs from baby cabbage

What is baby cabbage?

Baby cabbage, also known as miniature Chinese cabbage, belongs to the dicotyledonous plant class. It looks the same as Chinese cabbage, but its size is only one-fourth to one-fifth of that of Chinese cabbage. It is a new variety of vegetable introduced from Japan (some say South Korea) and has become popular in China in recent years.

Mountain baby cabbage is a specialty of Yunnan, China. It is tender, fresh, sweet and delicious. It was first produced in a mountainous area called Tonghai County in Yunnan at an altitude of 1,500 meters. It is irrigated with mountain spring water and cultivated in a special way. It is a high-quality mountain vegetable in Yunnan. It has a long history, but the origin of the vegetable remains to be determined.

How to avoid buying baby cabbage with formaldehyde

Go to regular supermarkets and markets to buy vegetables, so that the chance of buying baby cabbages that have been illegally soaked in formaldehyde will be lower.

Because formaldehyde is highly soluble in water, you may want to wash it several times with running water after buying it home.

Since formaldehyde evaporates easily at high temperatures, food should be heated thoroughly.

Maintain a balanced diet on a daily basis to reduce the possibility of consuming too much formaldehyde from foods that may be contaminated with formaldehyde.

How to wash away formaldehyde and other drugs from baby cabbage

Formaldehyde does have a preservative effect, and hospitals do use 10% formalin (4% formaldehyde solution) to soak corpses.

However, even if the vendors really use formaldehyde to treat baby cabbages, they are not soaking them directly in formalin solution as we imagine. To achieve the effect of preserving food, a formaldehyde solution of about 0.1% is enough, and the concentration is far lower than that of formalin.

Eating a large amount of formaldehyde in a short period of time may cause acute poisoning. However, unless it is accidentally taken orally, the amount of formaldehyde that an average person eats from vegetables is usually not enough to cause acute poisoning.

Although baby cabbage may contain formaldehyde and pesticide residues, they can be completely eliminated through proper cleaning.

Salt water soak

Washing vegetables is nothing more than soaking them for a while, but there are methods for soaking them. First of all, you have to know what to soak them in. I recommend soaking them in salt water. Everyone knows that salt water has the function of disinfection and sterilization. Then we can use salt water to soak the vegetables we bought home for about 10 minutes.

Soda Soak

In addition to soaking vegetables in salt water, in fact, soda water can also be used to wash vegetables. What is needed is baking soda powder. We can add baking soda according to the amount of vegetables. After adding, we put the vegetables in to wash, then soak them for about 10 minutes, and finally rinse them in clean water.

Detergent is not good for washing vegetables

When washing vegetables, it is best to soak them in salt water and soda water, because washing with plain water will not be so clean. Some people also like to use detergent to wash vegetables. Detergent is a chemical ingredient. In this case, if the detergent is not cleaned thoroughly, it may cause secondary contamination to the vegetables.