Caipirinha – Summer enjoyment with or without pesticides?

Report from a day in the lab

Hanna Dias

 

Enjoying the sun, meeting friends and perhaps drinking one or the other cocktail – that’s summer. A classic among cocktails is the Brazilian Caipirinha. Just four ingredients are needed for this refreshing cocktail: sugar cane brandy, cane sugar, limes and crushed ice. But how does the choice of limes affect the amount of pesticides in the cocktail? CVUA Stuttgart prepared cocktails with conventional limes, conventional limes with “peels suitable for consumption”, and organic limes, and then measured the pesticide quantities. There are no legal guidelines specifying which limes may be used for making cocktails. The results show significant differences, however.

 

 

Limes – are the peels suitable for consumption?

Citrus fruit peels are often treated with after-harvest treatment agents during transport and storage to protect them from spoilage. Typical agents include the fungicides imazalil, thiabendazol, orthophenylphenol and pyrimethanil. But how do we know if lime peels have been treated or not?

 

If the substance thiabendazol was used for the preservation, the statement “preserved with thiabendazhol“ must be indicated on the packaging or on a sign near the food. However, if other substances have been used on the surface of the peel, a reference to these substances is only required for lemons, oranges and mandarines (including satsumas, clementines and tangerines). For limes this indication is voluntary. Nevertheless, one can often find the specification “preserved with …” on limes as well. A lack of reference to an after-harvest treatment does not necessarily rule one out, however.

 

If no after-harvest treatment of the peel was made, this would usually be indicated with the statement „peel is suitable for consumption” or “peel untreated after harvest”. An indication of „untreated“ would preclude both an after-harvest treatment as well as pre-harvest application of a plant protector substance.

 

 

Surface treatment of peels results in comparatively high residue amounts. While the limes with treated peels contained an average residue amount of 4.9 mg/kg, the limes with peels that were “suitable for consumption” had a significantly lower average, of 0.19 mg/kg (analytical timeframe of 2021 to mid-August 2023). The average quantity of residues in organic limes was even lower, at 0.003 mg/kg. All of the analyses involved the whole lime, including the peel.

 

 

More information on the residue situation in limes and other citrus fruits is available in our report „Rückstände und Kontaminanten in Frischobst aus konventionellen Anbau 2022“.

 

Caipirinha – With or without Pesticides?

When baking with the zest of citrus fruits, one should always use untreated peels – that’s common knowledge. But what about when you don’t actually eat the lime, but squeeze it or even crush it into a cocktail, for example? Are there differences in the amounts of pesticides found in the drink?

 

To find out, we prepared and analyzed caipirinhas, as follows:

Ingredients

• 6 cl sugar cane brandy
• 1 lime
• 1 Tbsp. brown sugar
• Crushed Ice

Instructions

• Cut limes into eighths, put into a glass, add brown sugar and crush with a pestle
• Fill the glass with crushed ice and add sugar cane brandy
• Stir the glass contents and add more crushed ice

 

For the analysis we let the ice melt and then stirred the contents in the glass again. Then we processed and analyzed the liquid and pieces of lime flesh in accordance with the typical procedures used in the pesticide analyzing methods "QuEChERS"and "QuPPe“. Our aim was to analyze everything that could fit through a straw and be consumed. In addition to these analyses, we measured the amount of pesticide contained in the limes from which the caipirinhas were made. The limes were not washed prior to making the caipirinhas.

 

 

The experiment showed that pesticides definitely transfer from the limes into the caipirinha cocktail. In the caipirinhas made from limes with “consumption suitable peels”, about 1% of the pesticides in the limes ended up in the caipirinha; those made with peel-preserved limes captured about 25% of the pesticides. The comparatively higher average residue amounts contained in the caipirinhas made with the peel-treated limes are related to two factors: 1) the average residue amount in the limes themselves was significantly higher, and 2) the surface treatment substances can dissolve more easily in the alcohol-water mixture of the caipirinhas than the pesticides used in cultivation.

 

For the limes with treated peels, the following substances transferred into the caipirinhas in amounts > 0.01 mg/kg:

• Phosphonic acid (fungicide)
• Azoxystrobin (fungicide)
• Fludioxonil (fungicide)
• Imidacloprid (insecticide)
• Thiabendazol (surface treatment substance, fungicide)
• Imazalil (surface treatment substance, fungicide)

 

The surface treatment substance imazalil is suspected of having a carcinogenic effect on humans [1]. This is yet another reason not to consume citrus fruits with treated peels and, as our experiment shows, not to use them in the preparation of cocktails.

 

Illustration 1: Amounts of plant protector residues (sum of all residues) in conventional limes and caipirinha cocktails made from them, as comparison (5 samples, CVUAS 2023)

 

The analysis was carried out not only with conventional limes, but also with two samples of organic limes. In these two cases there were no detectable quantities of plant protector residues measured, neither in the limes, nor in the caipirinha cocktails.

 

Summary

Not only before baking, but also before making cocktails is it worth casting a glance at the label on or near citrus fruits. Even if the peels won’t be eaten themselves, pesticides can leech into the cocktail. Therefore, only citrus fruits with peels “suitable for consumption“ should be used. Pesticides present in the fruit flesh can also transfer into the cocktail, however. So those who want to play it absolutely safe should use citrus fruits from organic cultivation. If no pesticides were used in their production, they won’t be found in your cocktail either.

 

Photo Credits

Anne Benkenstein

 

References

[1] Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1272/2008 des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rates vom 16. Dezember 2008 über die Einstufung, Kennzeichnung und Verpackung von Stoffen und Gemischen, zur Änderung und Aufhebung der Richtlinien 67/548/EWG und 1999/45/EG und zur Änderung der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1907/2006 (ABl. L 353/1), zuletzt geändert durch die Delegierte Verordnung (EU) 2023/1435 vom 2. Mai 2023 (ABl. L 176/6)

 

Translator

Catherine Leiblein

 

 

Report published on 22.05.2024 14:39:15