Food can be health-giving. A global transition towards plant-based diets may equally help curb carbon emissions, slow land-system change and conserve finite resources. Yet, projected benefits of such 'planetary health' diets imperfectly capture the environmental or societal health outcomes tied to food production. Here, we examine pesticide-related hazards of fruit and vegetable consumption, and list proven management alternatives per commodity, geography and chemical compound. Across countries, pesticide use in these alleged healthful foods is extensive with up to 97% food items containing residues and up to 42% posing dietary risks to consumers. Multiple residues are present in 70-92% of US- and China-grown stone fruit while 58% US cauliflower is tainted with neonicotinoid insecticides. Science-based alternatives and decision-support frameworks can help food producers reduce risks and potential harm by deliberately abstaining from pesticide use. As such, opportunities abound to advance 'win-win' diets that simultaneously nurture human health and conserve global biodiversity.

An empirical model of leaching of pesticides was developed to simulate the concentration of fungicides throughout unsaturated soil. The model was based on chemical reactions and the travel time of a conservative tracer to represent the travel time required for water to flow between soil layers. The model’s performance was then tested using experimental data from dimethomorph and pyrimethanil applied to the soil under field and laboratory conditions. The empirical model simulated fungicide concentration on soil solids and in soil solution at different depths over time (mean square error between 2.9 mg² kg⁻² and 61mg² kg⁻²) using sorption percentages and degradation rates under laboratory conditions. The sorption process was affected by the organic carbon, clay, and the effective cation exchange capacity of the soil. The degradation rate values of dimethomorph (0.039 d⁻¹–0.009 d⁻¹) and pyrimethanil (0.053 d⁻¹–0.004 d⁻¹) decreased from 0 to 40 cm and then remained constant in deeper soil layers (60–80 cm). Fungicide degradation was a critical input in the model at subsurface layers. The model was determined to be a reliable mathematical tool to estimate the leachability of pesticides in tropical soil under a steady-state flow. It may be extended to other substances and soils for environmental risk assessment projects. Graphical

Background: The phenomenon known as the “matrix-induced chromatographic response enhancement” commonly affects the sensibility, precision, and accuracy in pesticide residue analysis. The presence of matrix effects can be given by adsorption and/or thermal decomposition of pesticides on the gas chromatograph injection port. Objective: To reduce the matrix-induced chromatographic response enhancement on pesticide residues analysis in food through the use of several operational modes of programmable temperature vaporizer inlet. Methods: The analyses were carried out in potato (Solanum tuberosum) extracts by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detector. In this study, four programmable temperature vaporizer splitless modes were investigated: hot, pulsed, cold and solvent vent. Another topic developed in this study has to do with the influence of injection volume, assessed for the matrix effects. Results: The analysis of variance (ANOVA) (α = 0.05) indicates that when the hot splitless is used most compounds are subjected to matrix-induced chromatographic response enhancement. Furthermore, with the pulsed splitless, a decrease in the number of compounds with matrix-induced chromatographic response enhancement was found, approximately 20% compared to the classic hot splitless. Finally, a remarkable decrease in matrix-induced effects was found when cold splitless mode was used, since there was up to 55% reduction in the compounds, relative to traditional hot splitless, that showed statistical differences between responses in matrix-free standards and matrix-matched standards. Conclusions: It was found that the use of conventional hot splitless and pulsed splitless modes caused matrix-induced effects in more than 70% of the studied compounds. In addition, the results indicate that for most compounds there is an inverse relationship between matrix-induced chromatographic response enhancement and the volume of injection.

Debido a la importancia de desarrollar metodologías que permitan el análisis de los residuos agrícolas, el presente trabajo validó un método cualitativo rápido (screening) para el análisis de residuos de plaguicidas en frutas y hortalizas. La metodología se basó en el método de extracción QuEChERS, versión europea, con un paso adicional de limpieza por cromatografía de permeación por gel (GPC), lo cual permitió reducir la cantidad de componentes de la matriz en el extracto final. El análisis fue realizado por cromatografía de gases/espectrometría de masas con un analizador cuadrupolo simple. La metodología resultó adecuada para el análisis cualitativo de 31 plaguicidas a su respectivo límite máximo de residuos. Los resultados en muestras reales fueron consistentes respecto a una metodología cuantitativa de rutina, por ende, la metodología resultó ser una buena alternativa para el análisis rápido de estos contaminantes.