Pesticide Testing Lab Update from the Health Ranger (Video)

Monday, January 15, 2018 by Martin Mavis

A quick update from the Health Ranger about new lab technology that will power a new effort to document pesticides in off-the-shelf foods.

Podcast Transcript: “Welcome to Health Ranger Science. I’ve got a lab update for you on the pesticide testing results for off-the-shelf foods. It’s been slightly delayed, but it’s exciting. The reason why, as you’ll hear in a second here, people have been asking me, ‘hey where’s all the pesticide testing results that you were going to start putting out in 2018.’ Well, they’re coming, but here’s what actually delayed us a little bit and here’s why it’s good news. Number one: We are the first lab in North America to have this new pesticide extraction instrument that processes twelve samples at once for extraction. Just to back up, the way you analyze pesticides is through liquid chromatography mass spectrometry or what’s called lc/ms. In order to do this, you have to have a liquid and you have to have pesticides in the liquid. So, you can’t just take – let’s say a pot brownie – you can’t just take a pot brownie and stick it into the machine and say, ‘tell me what pesticides are in the pot brownie.’ No, you actually have to extract the pesticides from the pot brownie. (Not that we have pot brownies in the lab, trust me – we don’t. We do have a lot of chocolate bars though.) But you have to extract pesticides from the pot brownie and turn it into a liquid. Then the liquid goes into the instrument. The instruments only test liquids, that’s it…” Listen to the full podcast below: