- The growing problem of pesticide resistance
means an increasing number of mites and beetles are turning up in cereal-based
foods.
-
- In a new study reported in New Scientist,
the little creatures were detected in bread, biscuits and baby food.
-
- The study was conducted by Ken Wildey
and colleagues at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's Central
Science Laboratory in York.
-
- The team studied grain from 279 commercial
stores. Eighty-one per cent of the grain stores contained mites and 27%
contained beetles.
-
- The public will be most alarmed to hear
that in the testing of 567 cereal-based food products - including flour,
bread, breakfast cereals and biscuits - about a fifth were shown to contain
mites.
-
- But although these levels may seem high,
Ken Wildey said UK food was still of a very high quality.
-
- Detection level
-
- "The detection level was set at
one mite per 20 grams of foodstuff, so I guess that measures up to 75 mites
in a bag of flour," he told the BBC.
-
- "They are very tiny, they're almost
invisible to the naked eye, they're less than half-a-millimetre long, they're
soft-bodied, they're slightly hairy - they're just little blobs."
-
- Wildey has no idea if the creatures were
alive or dead because the testing procedure he used to detect them would
have been fatal anyway.
-
- It is possible that dead mites could
trigger allergic reactions in sensitised people, but, in general, the creatures
presented no major health risk, he said.
-
- Resistant populations
-
- The scientist blamed the problem on resistance
to pirimithos-methyl and other organophosphate pesticides.
-
- A quarter of the populations of sawtoothed
grain beetles (Oryzaephilus surinamensis) isolated from grain stores showed
some resistance to organophosphates.
-
- "The Home-Grown Cereals Authority
is currently funding a major study to look for alternatives to the pesticides
that have been used for many years in storage to control mites.
-
- "They're looking for a non-organophosphate
alternative which is much more acceptable to the consumer."
-
- However, he said the problem could also
be tackled by ensuring grain stores were kept dry - the mites' least favourite
environment.
|
