Designing Pesticide-Minimised Infant Diets from the Raw-Material Stage A source-control framework for early-life food safety and the potential role of bicarbonate-based mineral pest-management technologies ACARISINTM and ECO-EFFTM

Infants and young children are subject to unusually stringent pesticide-residue protection because early life combines high food intake relative to body weight, restricted dietary diversity and continuing physiological development. This precautionary architecture should not be misrepresented as evidence that modern infant foods are generally unsafe: European Union (EU) monitoring for 2024 found no quantified residues in 83.4% of 1,546 samples of foods for infants and young children and classified 0.9% as non-compliant after measurement uncertainty, while a 2023–2025 U.S. Food and Drug Administration market-basket survey detected no pesticide in 99% of 312 infant-formula samples tested for 318 pesticides. The opportunity for improvement therefore lies not in alarmism but in prevention of avoidable chemical inputs. This article develops a source-control model for cereals and other durable raw materials used directly or indirectly in infant diets. Stored-product insects and mites remain important causes of quantitative and qualitative loss, and their control frequently relies on fumigants or residual insecticides. Mineral and inert technologies provide an established alternative or complementary mode of action within integrated pest management IPM), although performance is formulation-, commodity-, pest- and environment-specific. ACARISINTM and ECO-EFFTM are considered as proprietary bicarbonate-based mineral systems in which the underlying mineral structure is retained while processing is intended to reinforce functional performance. This distinction is materially relevant in the EU because sodium hydrogen carbonate (CAS 144-55-8) is approved both as a basic substance and as a low-risk active substance under Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 and is expressly permitted for plant protection in organic production under the current implementing rules. The article proposes three translational constructs—Infant-Safe Raw Material Design (ISRMD), a Pesticide Exposure Budget (PEB), and an Avoided Pesticide Treatment Index (APTI)—and a multicentre non-inferiority/pesticide- displacement validation programme. The central hypothesis is falsifiable: where a bicarbonate-based mineral system provides non-inferior pest control and replaces a conventional pesticide intervention, the treatment-derived pesticide input and associated residue potential are prevented by design. This proposition requires product-specific analytical, efficacy, occupational-safety, technological and regulatory validation but offers a rigorous pathway from residue compliance to exposure prevention.