Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Chemistry journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchem Occurrence of perchlorate, chlorate and polar herbicides in different baby food commodities Sara Panseri a , Maria Nobile a , Francesco Arioli a , Cristina Biolatti b , Radmila Pavlovic a, ⁎ , Luca Maria Chiesa a a Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety, University of Milan, Via Celoria 10, 20133 Milan, Italy b Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Liguria e Valle d'Aosta, Via Bologna 148, 10154 Turin, Italy ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Food safety Baby food Glyphosate Metabolites Endocrine disruptors Chlorate Perchlorate ABSTRACT The incidence of endocrine disruptors, both possible (glyphosate and glufosinate), and demonstrated (per- chlorate and chlorate), was estimated in baby food commodities (meat, fish, cheese, vegetable and fruit). Ion- chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry analysis of the 105 samples did not show traces of glyphosate, glufosinate or their metabolites, while in 10.5% of the samples a quantifiable amount of perchlorate was found. Some samples based on fruit and vegetables revealed a substantial amount of chlorate, especially the preparations that contained carrots and potatoes: five samples were in a concentration range of 40–120 μg kg −1 , while one homogenized pear sample reached 372.2 μg kg −1 . The pure meat samples revealed occasional chlorate appearance, with less than 10 μg kg −1 . This is the first report of chlorate evaluated in various types of baby food and may serve as symptomatic data regarding its occurrence in infant/toddler diets. Therefore, ef- fective monitoring programs and subsequent strict regulations are strongly required. 1. Introduction Dietary exposure to potentially harmful substances is a key public health issues, especially when considering the most vulnerable cate- gories of consumers, such as infants. Infants eat more food per kilogram of body weight than adults do, so they could be exposed to higher concentrations of contaminants through their diet. Moreover, their metabolism and detoxification systems are not fully developed and all processes during these periods are also more easily disturbed. All these factors make infants a sensitive group of population (Granby, Petersen, Herrmann, & Poulsen, 2008). Special attention has been given to some emerging community alerts regarding pesticides like glyphosate, glu- fosinate, their metabolites, as well as by-products from water disin- fection such as oxyhalide anions, chlorate and perchlorate in particular. Glyphosate and glufosinate are herbicides that are used extensively in agriculture and in populated urban zones. They have aroused a high level of public concern due to their frequent detection in plants, soil, water, some food and human urine (Aparicio et al., 2013). The con- troversy between the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, 2015) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA, 2017) about their suspected carcinogenicity is still a matter for discussion and eva- luation. In fact, the hazardous properties of glyphosate’s main metabolite – aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), was not considered in the ECHA study, despite the fact that European Authorities have clearly recommended its health risk evaluation. Furthermore, following a mandate from the European Commission to consider the findings from the IARC regarding the potential carcinogenicity of glyphosate, in the document entitled “Conclusion on the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance glyphosate”, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) stated that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcino- genic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classifica- tion with regard to its carcinogenic potential according to Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 (EFSA, 2015a). Nevertheless, EFSA reviewed the maximum residue levels (MRLs) currently established in European Union in the document that has been published recently (EFSA, 2018). In this review the diets of adults and children were evaluated in the respect to the safe intake values that were recommended (EFSA, 2015a). Perchlorate (ClO 4 − ) is a pollutant present in the environment and, as a consequence, it can be transferred to food and drinking water. Primarily, it is a well-known component of natural fertilizers which is why soil is a main source of food and water contamination. Furthermore, perchlorate is one of the degradation products arising from chlorinated disinfectants used for water processing, and this could https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2020.127205 Received 8 December 2019; Received in revised form 31 May 2020; Accepted 31 May 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: radmila.pavlovic1@unimi.it (R. Pavlovic). Food Chemistry 330 (2020) 127205 Available online 04 June 2020 0308-8146/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T