A recent, well-publicized report that connected attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to pesticide residues on fruit and veggies has the director of UC Davis' Food Safe Program concerned. Carl Winter was quoted in an Orange County Register blog as saying the research shouldn't deter parents from feeding their children fruits and vegetables.

“The most important thing consumers can do is eat fruits and vegetables,” he was quoted. “There’s not, at this stage, the evidence that this causes ADHD. There seems to be a correlation, but not a cause-and-effect relationship. We need to take these things seriously, but at the same time we don’t want to unnecessarily scare consumers into avoiding fruits and vegetables.”

Winter said food contamination with bacteria should be of greater concern.

“No matter what food you have, you don’t know who touched it before you got it, and for that reason you should do what you can to take care of it,” Winter said.

A free, downloadable UC publication, Safe Handling of Fruits and Vegetables, gives consumers the information they need to minimize the threat of bacterial contamination of food.

The Register blog post, written by Landon Hall, gave a brief outline of the ADHD study. Researchers analyzed urine samples from 1,139 children age 8 to 15. They found that kids with the highest levels of malathion metabolites in their urine were associated with a 55 percent higher risk of having ADHD. About 10 percent of the children in the study pool had the disorder, slightly above the national average.