Decontamination methods utilising house hold practices for removing pesticides on field bean for food safety

Abstract

Field bean belongs to the family Leguminosae, is an important pulse cum vegetable crop in India and is cultivated extensively for its fresh tender pods, leaves and seeds and as cattle feed. In India this is grown mostly in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam and the fresh and dried seeds constitute major vegetarian source of proteins in the diet and are rich in nutritive value and are rich source of carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, fat and fiber. The protein content of field bean is quite high varying from 20.0 to 28.0 per cent.1 However the primary cause attributed for lower yields of field bean is due to the heavy infestation of an array of pest complex. Govindan2 recorded as many as 55 species of insects and a species of mite feeding on the crop from seedling stage to the harvest of the crop in Karnataka and considered the pod borers as important as they cause 80-100 per cent loss.3 Naik et al.,4 reported Pod borers as key impediments for the low productivity causing a loss of 54 per cent in field beans.).The major yield loss is inflicted by the pod feeders which include both the pod borers and pod bugs. Pesticide use has increased rapidly over the last two decades at the rate of 12 per cent per year and the extensive, irrational use of pesticides resulted in the presence of residues of insecticides on different edible plant parts resulting in various public health problems and ill effects on environment. The increasing amount of pesticide residues in vegetables is a major concern to the consumers as the insecticides leave residues on pods which may persist up to harvest. Effecting export and sometimes rejection of consignments. Hence, great significance has to be given to for safe consumption. As the pods are consumed as vegetable, the pest control should be with pesticides having low residues. Vegetables retain residues of cocktail of chemicals as they are applied at different stages of crop growth and often prior to harvest resulting in health hazards to the customers. Removal of these pesticide residues is of importance before consumption of vegetables, Various studies have shown that processing leads to large reduction of residues in the prepared food, particularly through washing, peeling and cooking operation.5–7 Therefore, it is essential to look for cheap and effective methods which can be implemented easily at home. Thus keeping this requirement in mind, the present studies were taken up to evaluate the effect of different household processing and lab practices to reduce pesticide residues to a safe level for human consumption.