Research Publications (Food Safety)

In this study, an activated charcoal-infused dental floss-based solid phase extraction procedure using as an efficient and easy–accessible carbon fiber adsorbent followed by dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction was introduced for the extraction and preconcentration of some widely used pesticides from fruit juices. The adsorbent was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray analysis.

Like many other small crops across the world, Goji berries are sprayed with a variety of unlicensed insecticides in China to protect them from insect pests. If the global pesticide business is unwilling to engage in pesticide registration for minor crops, this incorrect practice presents consumer health and safety concerns relating to pesticide residues.

Pathogen infestation results in significant losses of fruits and vegetables during handling, transportation, and storage. The use of synthetic fungicides has been a common measure for controlling plant pathogens. However, their excessive use of chemicals has led to increased environmental pollution, leaving large amounts of chemicals in agricultural products, posing a threat to human and animal health.

In India, the levels of pesticide residues in Raw Agricultural Commodities (RAC) are being subjected to adequate legal regulations, and the health-risks associated with them are determined from time to time adhering to global standards. Since RACs are generally consumed by humans as the processed foods (PF), it is imperative to monitor the levels of pesticide residues in them in order to approach a realistic analysis of dietary exposure and concomitant health risk assessment.

The irrational use of pesticides has raised a negative influence on the environment and food security. Therefore, it is imperative to comprehend the current status of pesticide residues in the soil for agricultural production and their impact on the ecological environment.

The use of biocontrol agents (BCAs) represents a promising alternative to conventional methods for the management of gray mold in vineyards during the berry ripening stage. The main advantages of BCAs are the short preharvest interval and lack of chemical fungicide residues in wine.

Pesticides have been widely used to control pests and weeds during food production or storage, but when used incorrectly, they can cause damage to human health and the environment. Thus, this study aimed to develop and validate a multiresidue method for the determination of pesticides in potatoes, as well as to evaluate the concentrations in the peel and pulp of the tuber.

The current development model of the agricultural sector in Brazil has considerable potential to cause negative environmental impacts, including the pollution of aquatic ecosystems, as it may contribute to the intensification of erosive processes on deforested soils, to the leaching of eroded materials, and to the consequent siltation of waterbodies with soil particles containing environmental pollutants.

Quality and safety issues arising from herbicide residues in fishery products are a growing concern. In order to ensure the edible safety of fishery products, a comprehensive assessment of multi-class herbicide residues should be conducted. Hence a modified QuEChERS approach was explored and validated using UPLC-Q-Tof-MS/MS for rapid screening and quantification of 158 herbicide residues in fishery products.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is the second largest grain crop worldwide, and one of the three major grain crops produced in China. Take-all disease, caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici (Ggt) infection, is a widespread and devastating soil-borne disease that harms wheat production. At present, the prevention and control of wheat take-all depend largely on the application of chemical pesticides.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Pesticides play an important role in increasing the overall yield and productivity of agricultural foods by controlling pests, insects, and numerous plant-related diseases. However, the overuse of pesticides has resulted in pesticide contamination of food products and water bodies, as well as disruption of ecological and environmental systems.

For minor crops such as jasmine, the lack of pesticide registration and maximum residue limits are important issues that need to be solved in order to facilitate trading and ensure food safety. Meanwhile, reliable and quick analytical methods for multi-pesticide residues in these commodities are few, but required by various stakeholders.

The inappropriate application of pesticides to vegetable crops often results in environmental pollution, which seriously impacts the environment and human health. Given that current methods of pesticide residue detection are associated with issues such as low accuracy, high equipment cost, and complex flow, this study puts forward a new method for detecting pesticide residues on lettuce leaves.

A liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) method for screening, quantification and identification of veterinary drugs (antibiotics, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, anthelmintics, coccidiostatics and tranquilizers) and pesticide residues was validated in pig (porcine) muscle.

An effective microextraction, namely, in situ formation of supramolecular solvent (SUPRAS) method, was investigated for the determination of neonicotinoid insecticides prior to high performance liquid chromatographic analysis. The microextraction method has been utilized for the first time in the literature for separation and preconcentration of neonicotinoid insecticides.

Pesticide use has grown rapidly in West Africa over the past decades. Regulatory capacity has not kept pace with the rapid proliferation of pesticide products and on-farm use. As a result, health and environmental impacts from the growing use of pesticides, despite their potential importance to food safety, remain largely unmonitored, underreported, and poorly understood by key stakeholders.

Toxic pesticide residues in edible vegetables cause major health risks for consumers, hence quantifying them is essential. However, simultaneous and trace level determination of xenobiotic residues of various classes in complex food matrices is still a challenging analytical task.

To assess the contamination of processed chilli pepper and tomatoes, a report over the past four decades since the establishment of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was retrieved and analysed. Out of the 887 notification reports assessed for eligibility, 446 were found regarding chilli pepper and tomato contamination. This study identified India as the country of origin with the highest number of reported cases relating to chilli pepper contamination.

The excessive and unreasonable use of fungicides can inevitably lead to increased residues in food and ultimately cause harm to human health. To detect the residues of 8 fungicides in agro-products from 2018-2021 in Hebei province China, the method with modified QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe) by Ultra performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectroscopy (UPLC-MS/MS) was developed.

Honey is consumed worldwide because of its nutritional, therapeutic and medicinal properties. Generally, honey should reach the consumer in a pure form, but it is often contaminated in various ways. Thus, this study was designed to check for the presence of pesticide residues, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) levels, and the content of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) in selected European honeys (26 samples) obtained from shops.

This study was carried out to detect pesticide residues in tropical fruits. QuEChERS method was validated to determine 301 different pesticides in high water content commodities and high acid content commodities by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Matrix effects were determined for all pesticides in banana, blueberry, lime, mango, and pineapple.

Matrix effect (ME) is unavoidable in multiresidue pesticide analysis, even when using highly advanced instruments, and differences in MEs can affect residue analytical accuracy due to pomegranate cultivar composition variations.

Increasing pesticide contamination in foods of animal origin has made the wide-scope multi-residue analysis of pesticides an international concern. By using 191 pesticides, this study investigates a sensitive and reliable method for multi-residue analysis of pesticides in beef to determine the extent of the application of this method. The QuEChERS method was employed to extract and purify the pesticides as C18 was utilized as the absorbents.

In China, the status and risks of pesticide residues in edible mint is essentially unknown. In this study, we evaluated the residual status and associated risks of 208 pesticides in edible mints. Among the 16 pesticide residues detected, there were eight fungicides, six insecticides, and two herbicides, with difenoconazole exhibiting the highest detection rate of 25.55%. A proportion of 53.28% of the mint samples were detected with at least one pesticide residue.

Vast quantities of synthetic pesticides have been widely applied in various fields to kill plant pathogens, resulting in increased pathogen resistance and decreased effectiveness of such chemicals. In addition, the increased presence of pesticide residues affects living organisms and the environment largely on a global scale.