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The report below has been reprinted from the original analysis conducted by the Consumers Union of the United States, Inc., Public Service Projects Department, Technical Division.

"Which Foods Have the Highest TI Values? Seven foods consistently had high or very high TI's each time tested: Fresh peaches (both domestic and imported); frozen and fresh winter squash grown in the U.S.; domestic and imported apples, grapes, spinach and pears; and U.S.-grown green beans. Among these, U.S. peaches and frozen winter squash had TI Values about 10-fold higher than even the other "high" scores..."

This Report is very long, and has been broken down into different sections:

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|| Summary || Introduction to the USDA Pesticide Data Program || Methodology & Toxicity Index ||
|| Results and Discussion || Recommendations || Tables: Pesticide Contamination in Fruits & Vegetables ||

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE EATING?
AN ANALYSIS OF U.S. GOVERNMENT DATA
ON PESTICIDE RESIDUES IN FOODS1

Introduction to the USDA Pesticide Program

You can't control pesticide use by the agricultural industry... ...but you can remove the pesticides! Food and Water Ozonator

Since 1991, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has carried out an extensive program testing foods sold in the U.S. for pesticide residues. This Pesticide Data Program (PDP) is designed to provide data on actual pesticide residues in widely-consumed foods, including foods known to be eaten often by children, to support more accurate risk assessments by government agencies that regulate pesticide use.

The PDP uses standard, multi-residue analytical methods (MRM's) that screen foods for a wide range of pesticides, and carries out additional, specific tests for some widely used pesticides not picked up by the MRMs. The analyses can detect more than 200 different pesticides and breakdown products.

The USDA's test protocols require testing foods "as eaten." Thus, if a consumer would ordinarily wash, peel or cook a food before consuming it, the PDP does that before analyzing the food. The results therefore provide a reasonably accurate picture of residues that consumers are likely to eat.

Each PDP sample is a composite of about five pounds of produce; a sample of might consist of 10 to 20 apples or oranges, or several hundred grapes. Composite samples provide reasonable estimates of the average residues consumers are exposed to over time, but tend to average out the variation in residue levels that occurs from one piece of fruit to the next.

The PDP data therefore are likely to understate the maximum residue levels that may be present, for instance, on an individual apple, peach or carrot. This limitation is more significant for assessing acute exposure than for assessing
chronic exposure, since long-term averages matter most in the latter case, while occasional "peak" exposures can be crucial in the former. The PDP tests about 10 or 12 different foods a year, typically testing about 500 to 700 samples of each food. The foods selected rotate from one year to the next. The PDP has tried to test many different foods, which has tended to limit the program's ability to track changes over time in pesticide residue patterns in the same foods. Only a few foods have been tested for as many as three consecutive years.

In gathering the foods tested each year, USDA tries to sample both from major production regions within the U.S. and imports from countries that are significant suppliers to the U.S. market. For many of the tested U.S. crops and some foods produced in other countries, the PDP data effectively document the pesticide content of foods that are traded internationally. Our analysis is therefore probably of interest to consumers and consumer organizations outside the U.S.A.

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Bibliography and References

1 This report was compiled in February, 1999, by the Consumers Union of the United States, Inc. Public Service Projects Department, Technical Division
Edward Groth III, PhD, Project Director
Charles M. Benbrook, PhD, Consultant
Karen Lutz, MS, Consultant
The analysis was supported in part by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Joyce Foundation and the W. Alton
Jones Foundation.