Abstract
The evaluation of cereal-based product contamination by pesticide residues is a topic of worldwide importance, and reliable analytical methods for official check analyses and monitoring studies are required for multi-residue analysis at trace levels. In this work, a validated multi-residual analytical method by gas-chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry coupled with a rapid QuEChERS procedure was used for the determination of 37 pesticides (pyrethroids, organophosphorus and organochlorine compounds) in 209 commercially available samples of cereals and 11 legumes, placed on the Italian market in 2018 and 2019, coming from different regions of Italy, eastern Europe, and some non-European countries. No pesticide traces were observed in the analyzed legume samples. A total of 18 cereal samples were found to be contaminated by at least one pesticide, with a concentration level higher than the corresponding quantification limit, but never exceeding the maximum level fixed in the European Regulations. This work is the first part of a surveillance study for pesticide control in food samples.
Highlights
The determination of the contamination grade by pesticide residues in cereals and legumes coming from Italy and foreign countries in the years 2018–2019 was performed through the QuEChERs procedure coupled to GC-MS/MS
The evaluation of the contamination grade performed on more than 200 cereal and legume samples highlighted the presence of pesticide residues in the grain samples
7%), below the maximum residue levels, while no pesticide was found in the analyzed legumes
Summary
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), pesticides are “chemical compounds that are used to kill pests, including insects, rodents, fungi and unwanted plants (weeds)”. Over 1000 different pesticides are used around the world. Pesticides can be classified into different groups by target organism (e.g., herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, and pediculicides), chemical 4.0/). Organochlorines and organophosphates represent two of the most prominent pesticide families. Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) are chlorinated hydrocarbons, extensively employed in agriculture and insect control from the 1940s to the 1960s. OCPs have been banned in most of the technologically advanced countries and replaced by other synthetic insecticides, such as organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) in the 1960s and pyrethroids (PYRs) in the 1980s, due to their significant toxicity to plants and animals, including humans, and to their persistence and potential to bioaccumulation
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