The Role of Food Processing in Decreasing Pesticide Contamination of Foods

Abstract

As a result of the common use of pesticides for plant protection and animal hygiene, residues of these substances are often encountered in crops and meats. Hence it seems worthwhile to explore the influence of technological operations used in food processing on the residual amount of pesticides in processed foods. Such investigations may give additional clues to the proper settling of maximum terminal pesticide residues in food products.

This paper describes investigations that have been performed at our Institute with the aim of establishing the influence of several different technological processes on organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticide contents. The major parts of these experiments have been carried out on a pilot plant scale using crops originating from experimental farms and treated with pesticides at high dosage levels or meats fortified with pesticides before processing. The one exception was samples of oils and margarines which had been collected from technical scale production lots employing imported seeds.

In the investigations made with sausages, hams and fruit a decrease of the initial pesticide contamination by 30–80 % was achieved. In processing of vegetable oils and margarines no residues of pesticides have been found.

These results indicate the possibility that food technology may lead to the supply of foods more harmless to human health than raw materials.