Dietary Exposure to Pesticide Residues from Commodities Alleged to Contain the Highest Contamination Levels

Abstract

Probabilistic techniques were used to characterize dietary exposure of consumers to pesticides found in twelve commodities implicated as having the greatest potential for pesticide residue contamination by a United States-based environmental advocacy group. Estimates of exposures were derived for the ten most frequently detected pesticide residues on each of the twelve commodities based upon residue findings from the United States Department of Agriculture's Pesticide Data Program. All pesticide exposure estimates were well below established chronic reference doses (RfDs). Only one of the 120 exposure estimates exceeded 1% of the RfD (methamidophos on bell peppers at 2% of the RfD), and only seven exposure estimates (5.8 percent) exceeded 0.1% of the RfD. Three quarters of the pesticide/commodity combinations demonstrated exposure estimates below 0.01% of the RfD (corresponding to exposures one million times below chronic No Observable Adverse Effect Levels from animal toxicology studies), and 40.8% had exposure estimates below 0.001% of the RfD. It is concluded that (1) exposures to the most commonly detected pesticides on the twelve commodities pose negligible risks to consumers, (2) substitution of organic forms of the twelve commodities for conventional forms does not result in any appreciable reduction of consumer risks, and (3) the methodology used by the environmental advocacy group to rank commodities with respect to pesticide risks lacks scientific credibility.

Evaluating the Environmental Consequences of Swedish Food Consumption and Dietary Choices

“…In a review of available literature on LCAs of organic and conventional products, Meier et al [24] find similar reductions in toxicity for organic products. Nonetheless, many studies question the "safe" levels of toxicity for humans and the environment in conventional systems; see, e.g., [48,49]. In Sweden, there has also been considerable attention focused on conventional and organic foods due to a recent lawsuit filed against retailer COOP for providing "faulty" information to the public on the potential of organic foods to reduce toxicity [50].…”

Atmospheric cold plasma dissipation efficiency of agrochemicals on blueberries

“…Winter & Katz (2011) reported blueberries as one of top most chemically contaminated food commodities, which drives research into alternative mitigation strategies to retain the healthy, fresh and nutritional characteristics of this commodity. With continued increase in the consumption of minimally processed fresh produce, it is a priority to ensure effective intervention strategies are in place to assure product safety combined ideally with shelf-life extension.…”

Transparency As A Way Of Attaining Quality, Safety And Optimal Food Purchases

“…For example, one participant cited avoiding the 'dirty dozen,' a list of products that contained high pesticide levels (Environmental Working Group, 2010). However, a consequent study examining produce on the 'dirty dozen list' found pesticide levels to be safe, and the risk of exposure to pesticides for those produce items negligible, concluding that organic substitutes do not love consumer risks (Winter & Katz, 2011). This may mean that certain aspects of transparency, such as the disclosed use of pesticides, could needlessly scare consumers who are already confused over the safety of pesticides.…”