Nitrate Intake Through Vegetables: Good Or Bad For Human Health?

With the onset of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, higher crop yields and varieties were achieved by introducing different inorganic fertilizers.

- Naveen Kumar Mahanti¹, Sai Prasanna N², B. Baburao³, and D.V. Swami¹

Nitrogen (N2) is one of the primary nutrients that improves soil fertility, controls crop growth, metabolic and regulatory processes, and leads to wholesome improvements in agriculture production. Since N2 supply in the inorganic form to plants from the soil/ earth is limited, fertilizers should be applied for enhancing crop productivity. Synthetic fertilizers are used widely in agriculture due to their high nutrient density and low cost. In India, the consumption of nitrogenous fertilizers reported approximately 20,404 thousand tons during the year 2021-22 (https://www. faidelhi.org/statistics/statistical-database). The extensive usage of nitrogenous fertilizers in agriculture when far exceeds assimilation by crops, nitrate residues accumulated inside the tissues of horticultural crops (i.e., vegetables, herbs, fruits, and vines). Nitrates (NO3¯) constituted the most important nitrogen form taken up readily into the human body, thus affecting public health upon consuming nitrate-accumulated crops.

EFFECTS OF NITRATE COMPOUNDS ON HUMAN HEALTH