Results of the Total Diet Survey (third quarter), which sampled fruit and vegetables to see if they contained pesticides and heavy metal residues, gave the lie to the New Zealand Food Safety Authority’s spin that our food is free from residues.
Results of the Total Diet Survey (third quarter), which sampled fruit and vegetables to see if they contained pesticides and heavy metal residues, gave the lie to the New Zealand Food Safety Authority’s spin that our food is free from residues.
The latest results (at that time) reveal that pesticide residues are endemic in our food. Residues were found in 24 of the 25 fruits and vegetables sampled. Many of them had a cocktail of residues in them – as many as nine different pesticides in apples, nine in cucumber and seven in celery. Of particular concern is the fact that residues of 18 pesticides which are linked to cancer were found in the fruit and vegetables. All up, there are 75 pesticides registered in New Zealand for which there is evidence of carcinogenicity.