In 1993, the National Research Council urged major reform of the nation's pesticide law after concluding that pesticide safety standards did not account for the fact that children eat far more than adults relative to their size. Instead, pesticide safety limits are based on estimates of the U.S. population's average food consumption that do not account for children's very high consumption of some foods. The NRC estimates were based mostly on food consumption data from the late 1970s, the best data available at that time. EWG's analysis of new food consumption data from the USDA shows that for some foods the disparity between what children and adults eat is far more acute now than estimated in 1993. This finding lends even greater urgency to the need for pesticide standards to protect children.
Fruit juices account for the biggest increases.
Children ages one and two now consume apple juice at 30 times the national average. Grape juice consumption nearly doubled, from 11 to 21 percent more than the national average, and orange juice went up 80 percent- from 4 to 7.4 times the national average consumption level. Millions of children eat foods with significant pesticide residues every day. More than 4 million children, or about 20 percent of the children between the ages of 1 and 5 drink apple juice every day. An equivalent number drink orange juice.