Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: Clayton2 on 17/12/2008 02:51:42
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Hello
A new person new to gardening uses pesticides to control bug problems. The correct pesticides are used on garden vegtables. If the application of the pesticides is excessive due to an improper dosage is there the danger of the vegtables being hazardous to eat even after washing them thoroughly?
Thanks in advance.
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Yes. Many pesticides & fungicides will penetrate the skin and be absorbed into the flesh, or be taken in via roots, leaves and stems. With most, there will be an 'acceptable' level of contamination decided by farming and food regulatory bodies such as DEFRA and the Soil Association in the UK.
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Members of the Crop Protection Association have formed a voluntary group that provides Environmental Information Sheets (EIS) on a range of products. A range of active substances are listed, so you can check for whatever you are particularly interested in.
Link to Environmental Information Sheets (http://www.voluntaryinitiative.org.uk/Content/EISSheets.asp#results)
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Wea are talking about gardening rather than farming. The limits used by DEFRA and the like are designed so that eating vegetables with that much pesticide in it as a significant part of your diet for a long time will not do you any harm, even if you are a young child or elderly or whatever.
If we are talking about a crop of apples that were sprayed twice as much as they should have been, then the risk is tiny.
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There was a report some years ago of supermarket apples containing up to 8 parts per million of a cancer inducing insecticide for which the EU limit was 4 parts per million. At twice the legal limit, you would still have had to eat around 50 apples per day every day for your entire life for there to be any significant increase in your risk of developing cancer.
It was also pointed out that this insecticide occurs naturally in mushrooms at 800 parts per million.
I can't remember the name of this insecticide and my memory of this report is very vague.
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There was a report some years ago of supermarket apples containing up to 8 parts per million of a cancer inducing insecticide for which the EU limit was 4 parts per million. At twice the legal limit, you would still have had to eat around 50 apples per day every day for your entire life for there to be any significant increase in your risk of developing cancer.
It was also pointed out that this insecticide occurs naturally in mushrooms at 800 parts per million.
I can't remember the name of this insecticide and my memory of this report is very vague.
I find it interesting that people can kick up a real fuss over this sort if thing - "How can they sell us these apples when they know that they are unfit for human consumption" - and then go and buy a packet of cigarettes. (Or coffee, or alcohol etc etc).
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I find it interesting that people can kick up a real fuss over this sort if thing - "How can they sell us these apples when they know that they are unfit for human consumption" - and then go and buy a packet of cigarettes. (Or coffee, or alcohol etc etc).
Agreed. Unless there is a real potential risk, why give people the jitters over nothing.
I just looked at the original question, which asks is there any hazard from these pesticides. I obviously misunderstood the question as being any risk of absorption of the pesticide by the edible part of the crop, which there is. However, the health risk associated with this absorption is, to say the least, minimal or nonexistent in the vast majority of cases. The odd few which have been shown to pose a genuine risk are very quickly withdrawn.
Almost all pesticides and fungicides available to the general public are in a diluted form of the commercial equivalent.
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Biomagnification is one of the problems, the bacteria in the intestines starts to produce the chemical by duplicating it and the liver may not be able to break the chemical down so it never leaves the bloodstream.
Dependant the chemical(and the liver if your a garbage truck of a boozer).