Overview
Abbas and colleagues collected 210 samples of 21 vegetables from farms in four Sindh districts and from Karachi exporters in 2007-2008 and measured cadmium, lead, arsenic and mercury. Results are grouped as leafy, root and tuberous, cucurbit and fruity vegetables, with one mean ± SD per vegetable. All values were within the FAO/WHO limits the authors used.
Key numbers
- Coriander: lead 0.150 ± 0.0055 µg/g, the highest lead value (Table 2, p. 63).
- Fenugreek: cadmium 0.090, mercury 0.020 µg/g (Table 2, p. 63).
- Potato: cadmium 0.040, lead 0.091, arsenic 0.025 µg/g (Table 3, p. 63).
- Tomato: cadmium 0.071, lead 0.009, arsenic 0.025 µg/g (Table 5, p. 64).
Methods (brief)
Washed vegetables were dried at 105 °C, ground and digested in duplicate with nitric and perchloric acids. Cadmium and lead were read by graphite furnace AAS, arsenic and mercury by hydride or vapor generation AAS. No LOD, reference material or recovery is reported, and the DOI is not printed in the PDF.
Evidence Fitness
Ten samples per vegetable over a wide area, but no QA data and the weight basis is not stated (samples were dried before digestion). Category averages appear only in the abstract and were not used. Direct for non-root vegetables and root vegetables as raw produce; it is a proxy for the two vegetable puree pages, which are not linked.