Hotchkiss, who served as a reviewer for the report, criticized calls for more sampling of produce to test for pesticide residues. Extensive sampling already is carried out at the national and state levels as well as in the food processing industry, he pointed out, and less than 1 percent of samples are found to be in violation of legal limits on residues. More sampling would be a waste of time, he said .
Children eat large amounts of processed fruits and vegetables.
Canning, freezing, drying and home preparation most often decrease the pesticide content of foods, he said. In a limited number of cases, processing can increase pesticide content, particularly in the separation of crude oils or in dehydration. Subsequent processing, however, can remove these residues. Hotchkiss predicts that the U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency will act on the report by increasing the amount of toxicology data on young animals required for a pesticide to be registered and improving its tolerance assessment system, which provides information about how much people eat. This is despite that fact that pesticide use went from essentially zero in the late 1940s to 1.04 billion pounds of active ingredients in 1987.