Overview
Al-Shdidi measured cadmium, manganese, iron, lead, zinc and copper by AAS in 10 locally processed cheeses and 20 emulsifying salt samples from Baghdad markets. Cadmium and lead were below the reported limits in the cheeses, but the emulsifying salts carried several parts per million of both, which the author takes as a sign of industrial rather than food-grade salts. The paper is in Arabic with an English summary.
Key numbers
- Processed cheese (n = 10): lead ”< 0.05±0.001 p.p.m.”, cadmium ”< 0.1±0.001 p.p.m.”, zinc “7.3±0.3 p.p.m.” (Table 2; English summary).
- Emulsifying salts (n = 20): lead “3.15±0.275 p.p.m.” (range 0.4 to 5.9), cadmium “1.55±0.145 p.p.m.” (range 0.1 to 3.0), zinc “233.1±5.6 p.p.m.” (Table 3; English summary).
Methods (brief)
Cheese (5 to 10 g) was digested with 6N hydrochloric acid; salts were dried, ashed at 450 °C and taken up in acid. Analysis used flame AAS. Only calibration standards are described; no reference material, recovery or detection limit is given, and the ± values are mean deviations.
Evidence Fitness
A small market sample with minimal QA and an unstated basis. Table 1 of the paper repeats Egyptian reference values for other cheeses and is not new data. Processed cheese is a proxy for the macaroni and cheese page, not a measurement of that dish; the emulsifying salt data are relevant to processed-cheese ingredients.