Complications Of Fruit And Vegetables

term fruits and vegetables have diverse meanings depending on the context in which they are used. Vegetables could be defined as the plant part used as food typically as accompaniment to meat or fish, such as cabbage, potatoes, carrot or bean (O‟Hare et al., 2001). In this context fruits are known to be the sweet and fleshy product of a tree or plant that contains a seed and can be eaten as food. However, in botany, a fruit is defined as the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering (Leff&Fierer,2013).

Fruits and vegetables are beneficial to our health and well-being, as they are made up of essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other health-promoting phytochemicals. The present health-conscious generation prefers a diet exhibiting low calories and low fat/sodium contents. Intake of Fruits and

are predominant. The normal bacterial microflora on fruit and vegetables includes variety of Gram negative bacteria (predominantly Pseudomonas, Erwinia, Lactobacillus), which may have been introduced by an insect such as the fruit fly, Likewise, hand-picking the fresh produce inoculates the fruit surfaces with Staphylococcus. Contact with soil, especially partially processed compost or manure, adds diverse human pathogenic microbes generally of the fecal-oral type including the Enterobacter, Shigella, Salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7 and many more.

These microbes are found and will remain on the outside of fruits and vegetables surfaces as long as the skins are healthy and without bruise. Any cuts or bruises that appear during the postharvest processing operations allow the entry of these microbes to the less protected internal soft tissue and causes food borne diseases (Kalia and