Investigating the Effect of Washing, Saturating and Cooking Procedures on the Residual Amounts of Butachlor and Diazinon Vegetable Pesticides in White Rice

Objective: The usage of pesticides has increased during the recent years. One the other hand, presence of harmful pesticides residue in rice and other food has caused a great concern among the consumers. Therefore, it is important to develop some pragmatic procedures to increase the food safety along with the reduction in consumption of pesticide residues. Methods: A gas chromatograph with electron capture detector was used to determine of residue of butachlor herbicide and diazinon insecticide in washed white rice, steeped white rice, cooked white rice to abkesh cooking method. The method consist of: 1- preparation calibration standards, 2- draw calibration curve, 3- Samples preparation 4- liquid phase extraction, 5- clean up, 6- analysis with GC electron capture. Results: The average percent  of  loss of the  butachlor herbicide in washed white rice, steeped white rice, abkesh white rice were  69.99% , 81.00% , 90.73% and 66.22% , 72.67% , 88.90%  for diazinon insecticide, respectively. The results obtained from effect of processes on the residual contents of butachlor herbicide in white rice indicated that the highest and lowest residual contents of pesticides in white rice were related to control treatment and abkesh cooking treatment, respectively. Conclusions: The results of present study proved that rice processing treatments such as washing, steeping, and cooking lead to a significant reduction of pesticides’ residue. Therefore, more process treatments, caused more reduction pesticides residue in white rice treatments.