Fruits are essential and nutritionally indispensable food commodities that form a part of a balanced diet. They supply necessary growth regulating factors that are vital for good health and are mostly consumed in their ripened form . Ripening is a highly coordinated, genetically programmed, and irreversible phenomenon. It involves a series of physiological, biochemical, and organoleptic changes .
Ripening is characterized by the production of ethylene, increased respiration rate, and fruit softening . Fruit softening is predominantly caused by cell wall disintegration and decreased intercellular adhesion . Although these changes make fruits edible and desirable, they also result in increased access of degradative enzymes to the fruit . This ultimately leads to deterioration if fruits are not consumed on time. As a result, to control ripening and also meet the growing consumer demands, fruit dealers tend to harvest fruits in their pre-ripening stage and subject them to various forms of artificial or chemical ripening .
Banana is one of the fruit commodities that can be subjected to these force ripening techniques. Banana is a climateric fruit, this means that is undergoes ripening even after harvest. In order to reduce the rate of spoilage and to prevent pest attacks, banana is mostly harvested at its pre-ripening stage and stored until it ripens. Many traders due to lack of patience and the desire to meet customer demands submit the fruit to these force ripening techniques.
Calcium carbide is prohibited as a fruit ripening agent in many countries due to its harmful effects. Commercial-grade CaC2 has been reported to contain traces of arsenic and phosphorus hydride (Akinleye and Coker, 2022) . Calcium carbide-induced ripening leads to the bioaccumulation of these residues in fruits. Arsenic and phosphorus poisoning results in symptoms such as diarrhoea, vomiting, burning sensations, and weakness.
Also, in contact with the eye, calcium carbide can cause severe eye injury due to the presence of these elements. When consumed in large quantities, it causes disturbance to the neurological system by inducing prolonged hypoxia (Per et al., 2007) . Furthermore, the consumption of fruits with arsenic has been reported to cause cancers of the blood (leukaemia), liver, skin, and lungs.
Current methods for detecting calcium carbide in fruit involve time-consuming and destructive chemical analysis techniques, necessitating the need for non-destructive and rapid detection techniques. This study combined near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy with chemometrics to detect two banana varieties ripened with calcium carbide in different forms when they are peeled or unpeeled.
Sixteen linear discriminant analysis (LDA) models were developed with high average classification accuracies for classifying banana based on the mode used to ripen banana, type of carbide treatment and the duration of soaking banana in carbide solution. Banana colour was predicted with partial least squared regression (PLSR) models with R2CV(coefficient of validation) > 0.74, RMSECV (Root Mean Square Error of Cross Validation) and <5.4 and RPD close to 3. The closer the R2CV and RMSECV are to 1 the better the model developed.
NIR coupled with chemometrics has good potential as a technique for detecting carbide ripened banana even if the banana is peeled or not Combining NIR spectroscopy with chemometrics for discriminating naturally ripened banana and calcium carbide ripened banana.
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References
Akinleye, M. O. & Coker, H. A. B. The use of calcium carbide in fruit ripening: health risks and arsenic index as a quantitative marker formcalcium carbide residue. https://doi.org/10.22034/pcbr.2022. 320724.1206 (2022).
Per, H. et al. Calcium carbide poisoning via food in childhood. J. Emerg. Med. 32, 179–180 (2007).
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