Overview
Ali and colleagues bought 32 composite samples of dried noodles and pasta from four brands in Sulaimani markets and measured lead, total arsenic, cadmium, nickel and total chromium by ICP-OES after microwave digestion. Table 1 gives one triplicate mean per sample. Lead was found in 28 of 32 samples at 0.31 to 3.16 mg/kg, and most samples exceeded the limits the authors cite for lead, arsenic and chromium.
Key numbers
- Lead: not detected in four samples; otherwise 0.31 mg/kg (sample 28) to 3.16 mg/kg (sample 12) (Table 1).
- Total arsenic: 0.02 to 0.94 mg/kg; the text gives 0.05 mg/kg as the minimum, although sample 20 is printed as 0.02 (Table 1).
- Cadmium: not detected to 0.22 mg/kg; nickel 0.29 to 2.08 mg/kg; total chromium 0.12 to 0.72 mg/kg (Table 1).
Methods (brief)
Ground samples (0.5 g) were digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide in closed microwave vessels at 210 °C and read by ICP-OES. Stated detection limits were 0.04 mg/kg for lead, 0.004 for arsenic, 0.006 for cadmium, 0.002 for nickel and 0.003 for chromium. Spike recoveries were 97 to 103 percent and procedural blanks were run; no certified reference material is reported.
Evidence Fitness
Thirty-two composite samples with stated detection limits and recoveries make this a usable survey. Its main limit is that Table 1 does not say which sample numbers are noodles and which are pasta, or which brand each belongs to, so the values cannot be split by product type. The text’s arsenic minimum (0.05 mg/kg) does not match the table (0.02 mg/kg for sample 20), and one cadmium value is printed as 0.00 mg/kg, below the detection limit. Collection dates are not given. Dried noodles and pasta are direct evidence for noodles and pasta. They are only a proxy for chicken-noodle-soup, ramen-soup, macaroni-and-cheese and whole-wheat-pasta (whole-wheat status not stated), and those thin pages are not linked.