[Effects of animal housing facilities on residues and contaminants in food]. / Einfluss der Tierhaltung auf Rückstände und Kontaminanten in Lebensmitteln.

There are--especially in the case of food of animal origin--only a few well-controlled studies available comparing organically and conventionally produced food with a focus on residues and contaminants. The differences found seemed to be much lower than expected, and the amounts of residues and contaminants were mostly below regulatory maximum residue levels. In the case of organically and conventionally produced milk there have been slight but usually not significant differences reported. One important observation is, that conventionally produced milk contains aflatoxin M1 more frequently than biologically produced milk. The investigation of eggs from different housing systems for laying hens showed in the case of dioxins the highest concentrations in free range eggs. In contrast, propoxur, an insecticide used against the poultry red mite, was found in eggs from battery cages in higher amounts than in those from enriched cages and in eggs obtained from an aviary system. Further research in this field is highly recommended, but there should be more sophisticated evaluation of the data sets from national and international monitoring programs.