Effect of household canning on the distribution and reduction of thiophanate-methyl and its metabolite carbendazim residues in tomato

Tomato in the field was sprayed with thiophanate-methyl to quantify the effect of household processing on pesticide residues. Changes in the residue levels of thiophanate-methyl and its metabolite carbendazim in tomatoes were assessed during home-canning processing. Pesticide residues in tomato were determined by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) after washing, peeling, homogenization, simmering, and sterilization. Results showed that washing with tap water reduced thiophanate-methyl residues by 25.0% and carbendazim residues by 13.0%. The peeling process yielded 84.2% loss in thiophanate-methyl and 87.3% loss in carbendazim from tomatoes. Peeling is thus the most effective step to remove pesticide residues from tomatoes. Homogenization, simmering, and sterilization exerted limited effects on the removal of thiophanate-methyl and carbendazim. The processing factors (PFs) of tomato samples after each step were generally less than 1; in particular, the PFs of the peeling process for thiophanate-methyl and carbendazim were 0.19 and 0.14, respectively.