No samples of fruit or vegetables supplied to schools last autumn were found to have pesticides above the legal limit.
The latest programme of residue testing from the Pesticide Residue Committee looked at 50 samples of six different fruit and veg. While 13 did not have any traces of residues, 37 were found to contain levels with the MRLs.
Dr Ian Brown, committee chairman, said: “The results should reassure parents that the fruit and vegetables their children eat continues to be safe. It is important to stress that the positive effects of eating fresh fruit and vegetables as part of a balanced healthy diet far outweigh any concern about pesticide residues.”
But the results have not gone down well with the Soil Association, which headlined the fact that 74 percent of fruit and vegetables going into schools had some form of pesticide on them.
“Unbelievably we learn yet again that pesticides are turning up in fruit and vegetables supplied to school children,” stressed the association’s policy director, Peter Melchett. “We know that children’s exposure and susceptibility to pesticides is likely to be higher as per body weight they ingest more food and drink than adults and their bodies’ ability to process and excrete any such residues is different to adults.”
Melchett also cited US research suggesting that children fed an organic diet significantly reduce their exposure to some groups of pesticides and the detectable residues in their urine declined ‘dramatically and immediately’.
