Alsabagh et al. 2025 - Assessment of heavy metal and nitrate contamination in canned products from local markets in Baghdad

This study measured heavy metals and nitrate in canned products sold in Baghdad markets, including canned pineapple and fruit cocktail.

Key numbers

Source units are mg/100 g on a dry-weight basis (samples dried at 75 °C; dry-solids percentages reported per row in Tables 1 and 2). Two product categories are within the scope of this page: canned pineapple slices and canned fruit cocktail.

Canned pineapple slices (Thai 16.7% dry solids / Chinese 19.5% dry solids):

• Pb 0.21 Thai, 0.30 Chinese.
• Cd 0.00 in both origins.
• Co 0.01 Thai, 0.00 Chinese.
• NO3 39.8 Thai, 44.6 Chinese.
• Mn: the source is internally inconsistent. The body-text paragraph and abstract state “1.01 to 2.37 mg/100g for the Thai and Chinese products, respectively”; Table 2 row for pineapple shows Mn 1.01 Thai and Mn 0.30 Chinese. The Table 2 value (0.30 for Chinese) is preferred for downstream routing because the 2.37 figure in the prose matches an unrelated mushroom row, suggesting a transcription slip in the body text and abstract.
• Fe 12.5 Thai, 0.34 Chinese.
• Zn 7.67 Thai, 2.62 Chinese.
• Cu 2.08 Thai, 0.25 Chinese.

Canned fruit cocktail (chopped fruit; Malaysian 15.2% dry solids / Thai 18.8% dry solids):

• Pb 0.12 Malaysian, 0.28 Thai.
• Cd 0.00 in both origins.
• Co 0.00 in both origins.
• NO3 28.3 Malaysian, 38.6 Thai.
• Mn 0.54 Malaysian, 0.24 Thai (body text); Table 2 row for fruit-cocktail shows Mn 0.12 Malaysian and 0.28 Thai, another body-text vs Table 2 disagreement. Both pairs are reported here for transparency.
• Fe 0.56 Malaysian, 0.77 Thai.
• Zn 1.83 Malaysian, 0.95 Thai.
• Cu 0.66 Malaysian, 0.23 Thai.

Methods

Heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Co, Mn, Fe, Zn, Cu) were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry per AL-Swaidan (1988); the instrument was calibrated with element-specific standard solutions and re-zeroed every ten readings. Sample preparation: heterogeneous canned contents were homogenised with a food mixer, dried at 75 °C in an electric oven, ground in a dry porcelain mortar, and reported on a dry-weight basis. Digestion: 2 g of dry sample placed in a 200 ml glass flask with 10 ml nitric acid, gradually heated at 250 °C for 1 h, with repeated additions of 5 ml concentrated acid until the sample solution became clear, then quantitatively transferred to volumetric flasks. Nitrate and nitrite were extracted from 105 g of dried sample in 50 ml deionized water (shaker, 2 h, Whatman No. 1 filtration) and measured with a nitrite-nitrate selective electrode (range 0.1 to 62000 ppm; pH 2 to 11; reproducibility 2 %) calibrated against potassium nitrate and nitrite standards, per Kharazi et al. (2021).

Implications

The source contributes country-of-origin-stratified occurrence values for canned pineapple slices and canned fruit cocktail sold in Baghdad markets. Units are mg/100 g on a dry-weight basis; downstream routing must preserve both the unit and the dry-weight basis (or convert explicitly using the reported dry-solids percentages) before comparison with regulatory limits or other studies reporting wet-weight ppb. The paper does not measure arsenic, mercury, nickel, aluminium, chromium, tin, or other HMTc-priority analytes.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• Pineapple
• Canned fruit cocktail
• Canned Fruit — REDIRECT (Cat 7 sub-variant of Canned foods, general)
• Lead
• Cadmium
• Cobalt
• Manganese
• Iron
• Zinc
• Copper

Verification notes

• Source identity checked against DOI 10.63799/AJOS/14.2.7 and the downloaded PDF; journal of record is Alnakhla Journal of Science (AJOS), 2025, 14(2):97-103.
• The PDF labels cobalt as “Cobalt” and “Co”; no arsenic values are reported for the pineapple or fruit-cocktail rows.
• Source-internal contradictions noted in ## Key numbers for pineapple Mn and fruit-cocktail Mn (body-text/abstract values disagree with Table 2 row values). Table values are preferred for downstream routing, but the contradiction is preserved here so a future audit can re-examine the original PDF.
• The paper also reports values for canned mixed vegetables, mushrooms, fava beans, chickpeas (whole grain and tahini), corn, and peaches that are out of scope for this page; those rows can be lifted into separate source-page slices or matrix-specific pages if and when those routing targets exist.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.