HEALTH: Food in EU safer from pesticides than in 2010

More than 97% of food samples evaluated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) contain pesticide residue levels that fall within legal limits, with just under 55% of samples free of detectable traces of these chemicals.

Compared with the results for 2010, when the same food products – excluding wine – were tested, the percentage of samples exceeding the legal limits has fallen for all food products tested, EFSA said.
The findings are part the 2013 annual report on pesticide residues in food, which includes the results for almost 81,000 food samples of a wide variety of processed and unprocessed food products from 27 EU member states, Iceland and Norway were tested for the presence of 685 pesticides.
Germany had the biggest weighting in the report with 17,473 samples analysed, while Malta had the smallest with 159. In Cyprus, 680 samples were analysed.
The reporting states tested 11,582 samples from 12 food products – apples, head cabbage, leek, lettuce, peaches, rye, oats, strawberries, tomatoes, cow’s milk, swine meat and wine.
The report found that 97.4% of the samples analysed fell within legal limits; 54.6% were free of detectable residues; 1.5% exceeded the legal limits, taking into account the measurement uncertainty, thus triggering legal or administrative sanctions against the food business operators responsible; and, residues of more than one pesticide were found in 27.3% of samples.
The majority of samples (68.2%) were taken from food originating in Europe, with 27.7% coming from food imported from third countries. The percentage of samples from third countries exceeding legal limits was higher (5.7%) than for EU countries (1.4%). However, exceedance rates for imported food have fallen by nearly two percentage points (from 7.5%) since 2012.
EFSA concluded that the presence of pesticide residues in food was unlikely to have a long-term effect on consumer health. For short-term exposure, the risk of European citizens being exposed to harmful levels of residues via their diet was rated as low.