They Are What They Eat 

Kids' Food Consumption and Pesticides

Environmental Working Group 25feb99

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, mixed fruit juice, and orange juice are consumed at 21, 20, and 7.4 times the national average respectively (Table 1).

These figures are well above those in the NRC analysis which estimated that one-year-olds consumed apple juice at 21 times the national average, fifty percent less than current consumption. 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.

Table 1. Millions of children eat foods with significant pesticide residues every day.

Source: USDA Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals..

These and other high consumption foods demand special attention from the EPA. 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. Just over 700,000 of these children a day drink grape juice (Table 2). Virtually any level of pesticides in juice can add up to a significant exposure and risk for children.

An EWG analysis of government records which includes these new consumption data shows that every day, more than 50,000 children ages one through five get an unsafe dose of neurotoxic organophosphate insecticides in apple juice alone, making apple juice number five on the list of foods that present unacceptable neurotoxic risks to small children.

In addition to juices, one-year-olds also eat 16 times more raisins, 13 times more apple sauce, 7 times more bananas and green beans, 6 times more grapes, 5 times more apples, 4 times more oranges and pears, 3 times more strawberries and peaches than the average person in the population. These foods tend to have far higher residues levels than juices, and account for the majority of pesticide risks to small children.

Table 2. One- and two-year-olds drink 20 to 30 times more grape and apple juice relative to their size than adults.

Source: USDA Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals.