No, it is not world’s tiniest poisonous snake inside Capsicum in the video.
Claim
A very important health issue. It is referred to as the world’s tiniest poisonous snake and it is often found inside capsicum. Pls always cut open capsicum before you use either for grinding or for salad. We must not be victims of circumstance. Kindly share with friends n family.
Rating
Explanation
A very old video is widely circulated on social media purported to show a tiny thin white snake-like worm moving inside a capsicum. This video claims that the thread-like structure is the world’s tiniest poisonous snake. This video keeps appearing in the public domain from time to time since 2019. The shared video can be seen here, here and here.
What is the truth?
When we searched with the relevant keywords, we found that the viral video is reported from 2019. However, worms inside vegetables are not uncommon, they can be seen in all vegetables, which we clean and use for further cooking. In 2017 a video went viral claiming to show a dangerous Tapeworm living inside the cabbage.
Firstly, we did not find any credible report warning about the dangers of any such invisible thin snake-like worm inside vegetables like capsicum and cabbage.
In 2017, the video of a “dangerous” worm inside the cabbage went viral and was immediately investigated by a media channel, namely VTV Gujarat. When they contacted the vegetable sellers in order to know the details about this cabbage worm matter, unfortunately, there was no information or they said they didn’t come across any such problems.
They further consulted botanists and plant experts to know more about the worms. The experts said that the thin tiny white worm found inside the cabbage is not a tapeworm and it looks like some other species.
The thin white worm inside the capsicum and cabbage is most likely to be some kind of Nematodes.
In reality, there are more than a thousand types of Nematode worms present in the world some of which are parasitic to insects and arthropods. The worms seen in the viral video might be juvenile parasitic nematode worms. They should have gone inside the vegetable by leaving the host insects or some other means.
Likewise, another old video from 2016 shows a similar nematode worm inside the vegetable Brinjal.
Meanwhile, vegetables like capsicum are also affected by Root Knot nematodes.
Subsequently, there is also a less likely possibility of someone putting the worms inside the vegetable to scare people or to make their videos viral.
This article is originally published by Youturn in Tamil in October 2019.
Conclusion
From our research, is found that the thin white tiny worm found inside the capsicum or any other vegetable is not a dangerous poisonous snake. Cooking and eating vegetables with worms does not lead to any major harm to human life. But the larvae and eggs of harmful parasitic worms entering the human body may lead to severe health complaints. However, if you get infected, it’s always safe to start the treatment early.
So, the information shared along with the video showing the worms inside the capsicum and cabbage is not entirely true. Therefore, consumers are always advised to be more careful while consuming the vegetables. Cut the vegetables, wash them well in warm water and cook them properly to avoid infection.
