British man eats exotic fruit in Mexico and is left with a completely burned face

Mr Watson used Google search to understand the danger.

A tourist from Britain suffered third-degree burns to his face after biting into an exotic fruit in Mexico. Thomas Harold Watson said he was in immense pain while sightseeing in Campeche, on the Yucatan Peninsula, according to a report in the New York Post.

“I couldn’t believe the pain of the biting in one instance,” the 28-year-old said of the incident that took place on May 1. The worker from Bedfordshire was walking in a nearby market when he spotted a stall selling cashew apples. , the fruits filled with the nut of the same name. Mr Watson, who regularly posts updates from his travels on Instagram, decided to try the fruit after hearing it was edible.

“You can eat the cashew apple fruit, it’s meant to be a little bit bitter. I had heard about it but never tried it in the flesh so I bought it, went for a walk and started eating a few different fruits “, he says. said.

Describing his first bite, he said, “I thought I opened it – it felt like a passion fruit, and I bit into this bag that immediately exploded. It immediately felt like fire, I felt this fire going through my body.” mouth.” However, the problems started the next day when he woke up. His face was badly burned and “scabby”, looking as if it had been doused with acid.

“When my lips were all burned, they literally felt like they had dissolved. It felt like my lip had been like baking paper for three or four days,” he recalled, adding that his hands were also discolored.

Mr Watson later used Google Search to understand the danger. In particular, the caustic combination of cardol and anacardic acid in cashew fruit can cause blisters if it comes into contact with the skin.

Even then, the 28-year-old didn’t go to the hospital because he didn’t want to pay a huge medical bill. He said the recovery process is still painful. “A few days ago I was able to rip my entire lip off, it was a few inches wide. They are still pretty burned and not great, but much better than they were.”

“It’s always good to eat local food, but I think it’s also good to have some knowledge about it,” he said.