Overview
Al-Sultany and colleagues bought chicken meat of six origins in Hilla markets in 2014-2015 and measured iron, copper, zinc, nickel, manganese, cadmium, lead and chromium by atomic absorption spectrometry on dried muscle. Each bar chart carries a printed data row with one value per origin. Iraqi house-bred chicken had the highest level of every metal and Iraqi farm-bred chicken the lowest for most.
Key numbers
- Lead, dry weight: Iraqi house-bred 1.39 ppm, Iraqi farm-bred 0.733 ppm, Turkish import 0.72 ppm, Iranian import 0.946 ppm (Figure 7 data row).
- Cadmium, dry weight: Iraqi house-bred 0.833 ppm, Iraqi farm-bred 0.276 ppm, Iranian import 0.513 ppm (Figure 6 data row).
- Nickel, dry weight: 6.13 to 8.023 ppm across origins (Figure 4 data row).
Methods (brief)
Deboned muscle was oven-dried at 70 °C, ground, digested with nitric and perchloric acids (4:1) following a 1982 ROPME manual and read by AAS. Concentrations are on a dry-weight basis. No blanks, certified reference material, recoveries or detection limits are reported.
Evidence Fitness
The number of samples per origin is not stated, and each origin has one printed value with no dispersion, so these are indicative values only. Quality control is not described. Values were taken from the data rows printed under the figures, not read from bar heights. Results are on a dry-weight basis and are not directly comparable with fresh-weight limits. Chicken muscle is direct evidence for chicken and only a proxy for chicken-broth, which is not linked.