The impact of household preparations on the residues of pesticides in selected agricultural food commodities available in India.

Gas chromatographic multiresidue methods for simultaneous determination of organophosphorus, organochlorine, and organonitrogen pesticides were used to study the exposure of the Indian population to pesticide contamination at their actual dietary intakes. Selected agricultural commodities--5 kinds of vegetables (tomato, potato, okra, cabbage, and green beans), 6 kinds of cereals and pulses (rice, maize, wheat, red gram, black gram, and green gram), and 6 kinds of fruits (mango, orange, guava, banana, apple, and grapes)--readily available in Chennai City local markets--were studied for this purpose. Samples were fortified with known concentrations of various pesticides and subjected to household preparation methods commonly used in India. The impact of household preparation is very high, resulting in 65-95% decontamination of pesticides at different stages. Of 512 raw market samples analyzed, the organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides present in 12 samples were removed during household preparations, resulting in residues well below the toxicologically acceptable limits.