How to identify toxic cucumbers? Master these identification methods

Generally speaking, the best cucumbers are green and glossy, with straight and evenly thick fruits, a firm texture, a flower still attached at the top with prickles, and a white bloom on the surface. For this reason, many people like to pick cucumbers with an attached flower and prickles when shopping at the market, believing that such cucumbers are fresher. However, according to media reports, these cucumbers that look very fresh may have been made to look tender with plant growth regulators.

Below are three tips to help you identify cucumbers treated with chemicals: First, look: naturally ripened cucumbers, because they receive plenty of sunlight, have deep, bright skin color, the flower at the top has already withered, and the prickles on the fruit are thick and short; artificially ripened cucumbers have fresh, tender skin color, faint stripes, a bright flower at the top, and thin, long prickles. In cucumbers treated with too many chemicals, a small soybean-sized lump may even grow at the top of the fruit.

Second, smell: cucumbers can be identified by their scent. Most naturally ripened cucumbers have a fresh fragrance detectable on the skin, while artificially ripened cucumbers have almost no fresh fragrance, and those treated with a lot of chemicals may even give off a fermented smell.

Third, weigh by hand: for cucumbers of the same variety and the same size, artificially ripened ones have a higher water content and are much heavier than naturally ripened ones, so they are easy to identify by weighing them in your hand.