(Bangkok Post, February 21, 2000)
Don't let the appealing look of fruit fool you! These days Snow White's fatal experience when she crunched on the gleaming-and poisonous-red apple is not just the stuff of fantasy. A recent report by Utusan Konsumer, a consumer-protection journal in Malaysia, highlighted the alarming issue of chemical contamination in imported fresh foods. These are issues which affect not only Malaysian fruit lovers, but also those of us here who think by eating fruit and vegetables we are making a healthy choice. Those delectable looking apples, cherries and oranges that now flood the local fruit markets in Southeast Asia from North and Central America, may contain more toxic substances than are healthy for us. Such poisons are used largely to keep the fruit unblemished during the long journey to Southeast Asia.
Here is an excerpt from the Utusan Konsumer report: Did you know cherries are sprayed with pesticides up to seven times before they are exported? And before they reach the fruit stall, lemons are sprayed with 2, 4-D-a major component of Agent Orange, the deadly toxin used to defoliate the jungle during the Vietnam War. You don't have to drink pesticides or walk into a cloud of spray to be affected. Each time you go for that perfect peach, glossy apple, flawless orange, unblemished potato, spotless banana, pretty mango or luscious cherry, you may be unknowingly poisoning yourself with a cocktail of cancer-causing chemicals. These fruits-and root vegetables, like onions and potatoes-are often sloshed, sprinkled and sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals to make them look good, keep fresh longer, and minimise losses for exporters.
Special chemicals, called colour-add concentrates, are also sometimes applied to even out the colour of the fruit. And to make it more appealing, tank-loads of fruit can be sprayed or soaked with a variety of chemical cleaners to remove dirt and mould. Some of these cleaners contain fungicides to enhance freshness. This contamination of fruit and vegetables, give us a steady dose of chemicals that are odourless, colourless, and tasteless. They make fresh food pleasant to the eye, but potentially poisonous to the body.
And of course there are no labels to tell you about the invisible extras-the multiple chemical residues-that you may be consuming. Unblemished fruit and vegetables, bug-free bags of flour (and even mould-free bread) exist because pesticides are used at various stages of food production. Onions and potatoes, for example, may be treated with sprout suppressants prior to long-term storage. Some fruits, because of their generally higher export value, seasonality and greater perishability, are the most common crops to be given special post-harvest treatments. Furthermore, as they are often passed from trader to trader, from one storage site to another, the same consignment may be treated with pesticides several times, thus the residue increases.
A 1985/1986 British study, looking at post-harvest treatments on a range of fruit and vegetables, found widespread residues and serious breaches of the maximum residue limits on crops, like potatoes. About 50 percent of apples, 33 percent of pears, and more than 76 percent of potatoes surveyed were found to contain one or more residue. This was one of the first reports to show that, even when pesticides are applied according to "good agricultural practices", excessive residues may be left. With treatment, apples last for eight to 16 weeks. The same goes for pears and mature potatoes. Oranges, grapes, grapefruits and kiwi fruits last for one to two months; and avocados, bananas, plums and mangoes for two to four weeks.
Many of us are not aware the imported fresh fruits we buy have been sprayed for protection in storage. Insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides are the most common chemicals used. Fungicides, especially, are now widely used for decay control in many fruit, vegetable and root crops. Unlike pesticides used in the field, which can be removed by rain, wind, manual handling at harvest, or washing after harvest, fungicides applied post-harvest in the packing house are not meant to be removed. They are often sealed by wax applied onto the fruit.
In the US (the world's largest apple exporter), a typical apple packing process is as follows.
The truck load of apples is showered with thiabendazole, a toxic fungicide, for about 20 minutes. Studies on pregnant mice fed with the chemical at the Tokyo Metropolitan hygiene laboratory found deformities of the legs and ribs of the foetuses. The truck is then rinsed to remove the pesticide and the treated apples can be stored for up to eight months.
Upon being removed from storage, they are further processed with pesticides. First, they are dipped in chlorinated water, before being sprayed again with pesticides. Defective apples are screened out and processed for juice, jam and preserves. This means food products made from apples can be contaminated. The "good" apples meanwhile are waxed to prevent them from drying and shrivelling on their long trek from the farm to the kitchen. Often fungicides are mixed with the wax. Artificial colours may also be added. Usually applied as a thin spray, waxes reduce moisture loss in fruit and vegetables by nearly half.
California grapes are fumigated with sulfur dioxide weekly for several months to retard the growth of mould. This chemical, which can be absorbed by the fruit, may cause skin eruptions, swelling, tightening of the chest, shock, coma and even death in people who are sensitive to it. Repeated exposure to it at levels not high enough to make you immediately sick, can cause mutations in living cells. Some varieties of seedless grapes are treated with sulphur dioxide in storage for up to 14 weeks.
In packing houses in California, oranges are typically sprayed with fungicides at least three times. Oranges for export to countries like Japan, are often fumigated with methyl bromide-the chemical known to cause severe lung, kidney and heart damage. Or they can be soaked in the fungicide solution, iprodione-a mutagen found to cause deformities in developing embryos. Pesticide residues do not just lurk in the skin of the oranges, it can also be found in the flesh. And the whole fruit-including the skin- may be used in marmalade and juices. In Britain, some citrus drinks have been found to contain traces of the fungicides used to treat the surface of the fruit.
In storage, these citrus fruit are sprayed with 2,4-D-a major component of Agent Orange, the deadly toxin used to defoliate jungles of Vietnam during the war.
In the US, the sprout inhibitor used in potato storage is chlorpropham (CIPC). The toxicity of this pesticide is evident from this caution issued by the Potato Storage Research Section of the Kimberly Research and Extension Centre, University of Idaho:"Caution is advised to anyone entering a potato storage unit after CIPC has been applied and before the fog has settled. All personnel should wear respirators and proper protective clothing until the aerosol has settled out of the air."
In packing houses, these fruit are sprayed seven times, the last two times with pesticides. Fungicides are also applied. Like oranges, cherries exported from the US to Japan, are usually fumigated with methyl bromide. About 17 percent of the methyl bromide in a normal fumigation process is absorbed by the fruit and ingested when the flesh is eaten. In a 1993 Japanese experiment with pesticide-treated cherries and unsprayed cherries, no fungus was detected in the former after seven weeks. In the later there was decay.
In Costa Rica, bananas are typically soaked in benomyl (Benlate), a well-known cancer-causing agent. Benomyl has also been linked with birth defects and is poisonous to the male reproductive system. The US Supreme Court has banned it. In Costa Rica, bananas are sprayed with pesticides at least twice. In the Philippines, they are also sprayed with benomyl.
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