Pesticide Residues in Canned Foods, Fruits, and Vegetables: The Application of Supercritical Fluid Extraction and Chromatographic Techniques in the Analysis

Abstract

Multiple pesticide residues have been observed in some samples of canned foods, frozen vegetables, and fruit jam, which put the health of the consumers at risk of adverse effects. It is quite apparent that such a state of affairs calls for the need of more accurate, cost-effective, and rapid analytical techniques capable of detecting the minimum concentrations of the multiple pesticide residues. The aims of this paper were first, to determine the effectiveness of the use of Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) and Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC) techniques in the analysis of the levels of pesticide residues in canned foods, vegetables, and fruits; and second, to contribute to the promotion of consumer safety by excluding pesticide residue contamination from markets. Fifteen different types of imported canned and frozen fruits and vegetables samples obtained from the Houston local food markets were investigated. The major types of pesticides tested were pyrethroids, herbicides, fungicides, and carbamates. By using these techniques, the overall data showed 60.82% of the food samples had no detection of any pesticide residues under this investigation. On the other hand, 39.15% different food samples were contaminated by four different pyrethroid residues ± RSD% ranging from 0.03 ± 0.005 to 0.05 ± 0.03 ppm, of which most of the pyrethroid residues were detected in frozen vegetables and strawberry jam. Herbicide residues in test samples ranged from 0.03 ± 0.005 to 0.8 ± 0.01 ppm. Five different fungicides, ranging from 0.05 ± 0.02 to 0.8 ± 0.1 ppm, were found in five different frozen vegetable samples. Carbamate residues were not detected in 60% of investigated food samples. It was concluded that SFE and SFC techniques were accurate, reliable, less time consuming, and cost effective in the analysis of imported canned foods, fruits, and vegetables and are recommended for the monitoring of pesticide contaminations.

Multiresidue Analysis of 86 Pesticides Using Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry: II‐Nonleafy Vegetables

“…According to the detected pesticides in and/or on the non leafy vegetables ( Table 2) involved in this study, it was observed that total numbers of the detected compounds were found in cold pepper followed by cucumber, hot pepper, potato, okra, bean, carrot, squash, egg plant, cultivation tomato, green house tomato, onions, and cauli�ower. e total number of the detected compounds in such leafy vegetables in this study was 10,9,8,8,8,8,8,7,7,5,4,3, and 1 compound, respectively. e data tabulated in Table 2 also showed the detected amounts of pesticide residues in non leafy vegetables could be ranked in descending order as follows: cold pepper, egg plant, carrot, cucumber, potato, hot pepper, cultivation tomato, squash, bean, okra, onions, cauli�ower, and green house tomato which represent the lower non leafy vegetable contained pesticide residues.…”

“…e frequency of the detected pesticide residues was calculated in the analyzed non leafy vegetables, it was found that the most frequent compounds was permethrin followed by deltamethrin and linden, endosulfan, chlordane, linuron, dimethoate, phosmet, and carbaryl. In terms of �gures, the frequencies for these pesticides were 11,8,6,5,5,5,4, and 4, respectively. e other detected compounds were frequented from three to one time.…”

“…MRLs are not toxicological limits, but they must be toxicologically acceptable. Exceeded MRLs are strong indicators of violations of good agricultural practices [7][8][9]. A multiresidue method is described for determination of 86 pesticides commonly used in crop protection.…”

Supercritical Fluid Chromatography: A Green Approach for Separation and Purification of Organic and Inorganic Analytes

“…Supercritical fluid extraction can be tailored to the polarity of the solute of interest by changing the temperature and pressure of the extraction process for removal of pesticides residue from foods (Camel 1998). Estimation of these residual pesticides, herbicides and fungicides can be done by SFC (El-Saeid 2003). High value nutraceuticals can be enriched by fractionation through a two-step process consisting of supercritical fluid extraction and supercritical fluid chromatography Montanari et al 1996).…”

Supercritical fluid chromatography with photodiode array detection for pesticide analysis in papaya and avocado samples

“…developed an SFC–PDA method for atrazine in standard solutions . Also El‐Saeid used SFC–PDA for the determination of pesticide residues in canned foods, fruits, and vegetables . Bicchi et al.…”