Overview
Al-Salimi and colleagues bought six samples each of 11 vegetables at the central market of Aden, Yemen, and measured lead, cadmium, copper, zinc and iron by flame AAS on a dry-weight basis. Lead ranged from 0.0007 mg/kg in leeks to 0.3765 mg/kg in legumes, the only item above the 0.3 mg/kg limit the authors cite. Cadmium was low in every vegetable.
Key numbers
- Legumes: lead “0.3765 ± 0.0461” mg/kg dry weight (Table 3).
- Watercress: lead 0.2130 ± 0.0127 and cadmium 0.0114 ± 0.0036 mg/kg (Table 3).
- Potato: lead 0.0123 ± 0.0412 mg/kg (Table 3).
Methods (brief)
Washed and air-dried samples digested with nitric and sulfuric acids in an 80 °C water bath for two hours, then flame AAS. Spike recoveries were 97 to 99%; no certified reference material was used.
Evidence Fitness
Six samples per vegetable from one market. The stated flame AAS detection limits are unusually low, and zinc and iron results are far below typical vegetable levels, which suggests incomplete digestion; carrot zinc also exceeds the abstract’s stated maximum. Treat the numbers as indicative. Individual vegetables are a proxy for vegetables-mixed: the paper does not measure a mixed-vegetable product, so it is not linked to that page.