Food safety in Thailand 4: Comparison of pesticide residues found in three commonly consumed vegetables purchased from local markets and supermarkets in Thailand
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Agricultural Science, Environmental Sciences, Food Science and Technology, Toxicology, Nutrition
- Keywords
- Vegetables, Pesticide residues, Chinese kale, Food safety, Pakchoi, Morning glory
- Copyright
- © 2016 Wanwimolruk et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Food safety in Thailand 4: Comparison of pesticide residues found in three commonly consumed vegetables purchased from local markets and supermarkets in Thailand. PeerJ Preprints 4:e1928v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1928v1
Abstract
Background The wide use of pesticides raises concerns on the health risks associated with pesticide exposure. For developing countries, pesticide residues in vegetables and fruits have not been totally monitored. This study aims at providing comparison data on pesticide residues found in three commonly consumed vegetables (Chinese kale, pakchoi and morning glory) purchased from some local markets and supermarkets in Thailand. Methods These vegetables were randomly bought from local markets and supermarkets. Then they were analyzed for the content of 28 pesticides by using GC-MS/MS. Results Types of pesticides detected in the samples either from local markets or supermarkets were similar. The incidence of detected pesticides was 100% (local markets) and 99% (supermarkets) for the Chinese kale; 98% (local markets) and 100% (supermarkets) for the pakchoi; and 99% (local markets) and 97% (supermarkets) for the morning glory samples. The pesticides were detected exceeding their MRL at a rate of 48% (local markets) and 35% (supermarkets) for the Chinese kale; 71% (local markets) and 55% (supermarkets) for the pakchoi, and 42% (local markets) and 49% (supermarkets) for the morning glory. Discussion These rates are much higher than those seen in developed countries. It should be noted that these findings were assessed on basis of using criteria (such as MRL) obtained from developed countries. Our findings were also confined to these vegetables sold in a few central provinces of Thailand and did not reflect for the whole country as sample sizes were small. Risk assessment due to consuming these pesticide contaminated vegetables, still remains to be evaluated. It is unlikely that this will affect the health of tourists visiting Thailand because they do not consume these vegetables daily and in large amount. However, remarkably high incidence rates of detected pesticides give warning to the Thai authorities to implement proper regulations on pesticide monitoring programme. Similar incidence of pesticide contamination found in the vegetables bought from local markets and supermarkets raises question regarding the quality of organic vegetables domestically sold in Thailand. This conclusion excludes Thai export quality vegetables and fruits routinely monitored for pesticide contamination before exporting.
Author Comment
This manuscript is currently submitted to PeerJ to be considered for publication.
It is number 4 in our research series entitled “Food Safety in Thailand”. There are currently three papers in this series that have been published under the main research theme of “Food Safety in Thailand”:
Wanwimolruk S, Kanchanamayoon O, Boonpangrak S, Prachayasittikul V. Food safety in Thailand 1: it is safe to eat watermelon and durian in Thailand. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine 2015; 20:204-215.
Wanwimolruk S, Prachayasittikul V, Phopin K. Food safety in Thailand 2: Pesticide Residues found in Chinese kale (Brassica oleracea), a Commonly Consumed Vegetable in Asian Countries. Sci. Total Environ. 2015; 532: 447-455.
Phopin K, Wanwimolruk S, Prachayasittikul V. Food safety in Thailand 3: Pesticide Residues detected in Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.), Queen of Fruits. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (accepted – March 2016).