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...th hazards, not everyone is worried. “I’m not extremely concerned about [pesticide residues] because I know that there are regulations in place,” said Anna Herforth, a graduate student in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition at the Friedman School. She says she does buy organic produce (which are grown without using pesticides) from time to time, but costs are a huge constraint. Three common pesticides and their uses Parathion Insecticide that disrupts the nervous system of pests on corn, soybeans and wheat Captan Fungicide that controls diseases on fruits and vegetables; gives apples a shine Alachlor Herbicide that kills grasses and weeds in fields of corn, soybeans and peanuts Pesticide residues generally result from a crop being treated with a chemical and the amount of residue depends on the exposure level (how much was sprayed on, for example), its dissipation rate, environmental factors (such as rain immediately following a treatment), and the physical and chemical properties of the chemical. According to a report in the National Academy of Sciences, food treated with a pesticide is theoretically never completely rid of all traces of residue. It is normal for a certain amount of residue to remain on treated crops. Pesticide manufacturers must demonstrate that this residue will not incur any harm to humans before the government allows a certain tolerance level to remain on our foods. In order to protect the American consumer, the FDA has set a certain level of acceptable pesticide residue of a particular chemical that can be ingested every day for a lifetime without causing any ill effects. Typically toxicological studies are conducted on laboratory animals to find out what sort of effects exposure to the chemical could have. The government then establishes an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI), which is intended to represent how much residue of that particular chemical can be ingested every day for a lifetime without causing any ill effects. Scientists conduct numerous tests to determine the effects of a single pesticide on laboratory animals. What is normally not studied is how the accumulation of different pesticides can interact in the body. Dr. Kathleen Merrigan, a professor in food policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, noted that one of the biggest challenges in regulatory decisions is trying to figure out cumulative risks. “What does it mean when you have vegetable soup?” Merrigan said. Each vegetable in the soup has its own tolerance level, but very little is known about what it means to consume the whole bowl. A sample daily meal plan has been found to contain nearly one hundred different pesticide residues. The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) goes shopping in regular grocery stores and then tests the food in laboratories for pesticides, as a way of finding out how many pesticides the average citizen consumes daily. The AMS then periodically publishes their results on their website, which is where individuals ca...