Determination of Pesticides in Organic Carrots by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography/High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry

ABSTRACT

Food contamination by pesticide residues, which may cause serious human health problems, is an ongoing challenge. Safer organically grown food is therefore needed. However, best practices are not always followed for farming organic foods, necessitating analytical testing. To this end, this report describes an analytical method for the evaluation of 82 pesticides by high-performance liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry in organically grown carrots. The method was validated in terms of linearity, precision, and limits of detection and quantification that ranged from 0.3 to 5 and 5–40 µg kg⁻¹, respectively. From the 82 pesticides evaluated in this multiresidue method, three were detected in real samples, with bendiocarb detected at the highest concentration (199.11 µg kg⁻¹), which was above the maximum residue limit. Chlorpyriphos (43.20 µg kg⁻¹) and amitraz (11.22 µg kg⁻¹) were also detected. Measurement of contaminants in organic foods should be a standard practice, which would contribute to improved food safety. It is observed that even organic foods can be contaminated by pesticides, intentionally or unintentionally, perhaps by cross-contamination. Pesticides in organic foods are a public health problem because consumers expect organic foods to be free of pesticide contamination, but this is not necessarily the case.

KEYWORDS:

• Carrots
• high-performance liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry (HPLC-HRMS)
• human health
• organic agriculture
• pesticides

Acknowledgments

The authors thanks to CAPES, FAPERGS, CNPq INCT Forense 465450/2014 8, and FINEP for support research.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the FAPERGS - PRONUPEQ [Grant Number 16/2551-0000523-0] and CNPq INCT Forense [Grant Number 465450/2014-8].