WEBSITE: There have been many posts circulating on social media showing images of tomatoes and various fruits, such as apples, with holes in them, warning users to be cautious.
These posts advise people not to eat such fruits and vegetables, claiming they may have been bitten by snakes.
The posts gained significant reach and likes across social media platforms. Then, reels began to appear in which individuals randomly displayed a fruit or vegetable with a hole in it and claimed that such products should be avoided because it may contain snakebite poison, possibly potentially leading to “death”.
These videos are increasing day by day and are misleading people, some even believe that these fruits are actually bitten by snakes and are dangerous to consume.
However, this seems more like a strategy to get views or go viral as this is unlikely to be true. As reported by AFP, snake breeders in Thailand claim that fruits and vegetables are not part of the reptiles’ natural diet, contradicting social media posts warning of snakes occasionally bite into the tomatoes, leaving small holes as they inject their “poison.”
While experts told AFP that the marks in the image shared with the post did not appear to have been made by snake teeth, a botanist advised that it is best to avoid eating fruits or vegetables containing gap.
“Caution should be exercised when consuming tomatoes, as finding tomatoes with these unusual characteristics may cause concern,” reads the Thai-language caption of a composite photo shared on Facebook.
The collage has an image of a snake biting a tomato, next to an image of holes in the tomato. The caption suggests that the holes may have been caused by snake bites, claiming that snakes sometimes bite fruit when hungry. “Your vigilance will protect you from ingesting toxins injected into fruit by animals.”
Similar statements were shared on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and X and posted multiple times in Burmese. Although the vast majority of commenters dismissed the warning, some users appeared to have been fooled. “Now I know… Thank you so much for the information,” one comment read. Another said: “Good to know!”
However, Saranont Charoensuk, senior manager and head of operations at the Siam Serpentarium snake museum in Bangkok, told AFP: “By nature, snakes do not bite or eat vegetables and fruits.” “The snake in the first photo is a viper – a venomous snake that preys on small mammals, reptiles and amphibians,” he added on December 3.
Taksa Vasaruchapong, acting head of Thailand’s venomous snake breeding center, also confirmed that the snakes are carnivores and do not eat fruits or vegetables. He also told AFP on December 3 that oral ingestion of snake venom would be much less effective than blood exposure, because “snake venom are proteins that can be broken down by stomach acid.” .
Both experts agreed that the holes seen in the viral photos were unlikely to be caused by snake bites. Taksa added that snake bites are not easy to detect because their fangs are “as small as needles.”
Teerada Wangsomboondee, a professor at Chulalongkorn University’s Department of Botany, told AFP that, in all cases, it is best to avoid consuming fruits and vegetables with visible holes. “If such holes are evident, the inside of the fruit will be mushy and soggy,” Teerada said on December 20. Even if those holes are caused by pests or worms, they will no longer have nutritional value.”
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