Does eating pickled melons and eggplants cause cancer?

There is a lot of information that says eating pickled melons and eggplants produces toxins and causes cancer. Is this true? (Quynh, 34 years old, Hanoi )

Reply:

Pickled melons and eggplants are "infamous" for causing cancer and affecting health mainly because many people eat them or pickle them incorrectly. According to the principle, the pickling process will cause a reaction that converts nitrate (a residual substance in vegetables and tubers due to urea fertilizer or absorption from soil with high nitrate) into nitrite. In the first 2-3 days of pickling, the nitrite content increases, then gradually decreases and disappears when the melons are yellow and sour. Nitrite in the body reacts with amino acids, forming nitrozamin compounds, which can cause cancer. Therefore, for good health, you should not eat newly pickled melons.

In addition, many sources of information say that pickled eggplant still contains solanine, a carcinogen. In fact, solanine can dissolve in salt, so pickling eggplant will remove this substance. Even when eating raw eggplant, the solanine content is very small, negligible, so the dish is not toxic and does not contain carcinogens. However, pickled cabbage and eggplant are easily contaminated with pesticides during the cultivation process, so people who eat them can be poisoned, so be careful.

In fact, for thousands of years, Asian countries have used cabbage and eggplant to make pickles, becoming a culinary culture of many countries. Pickled cabbage or eggplant is popular with many people, a side dish that goes well with rice, processed by creating a salt environment for fermentation by microorganisms. Through the fermentation process, harmful microorganisms are inhibited, helping cabbage and eggplant to be preserved longer.

When pickled, the nutritional components in vegetables and eggplants are transformed to create a more delicious and attractive flavor, reducing nutrients that are difficult to digest or harmful to the body such as solanine (in green eggplant). At the same time, pickled melons and eggplants also contain microorganisms that are beneficial to the digestive system. If eaten properly and pickled properly, it will not affect your health.

Note that pickled cabbage and eggplant are often salty and are not suitable for people with high blood pressure or kidney disease. In addition, in daily meals, healthy people only eat about 5 mg of salt/day, so the best amount of pickled cabbage and eggplant is only 50-100g/day. The pickling process should use ceramic or porcelain utensils, not plastic containers.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Duy Thinh
Institute of Biotechnology and Food Technology, Hanoi University of Science and Technology

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