Overview
Antunović and colleagues followed 10 French Alpine goats on an organic farm in Slavonia, Croatia, and measured cadmium, lead and mercury in their milk at days 30, 60, 90 and 120 of lactation. Levels fell slightly as lactation went on, but the differences were not significant. Results are on a dry-matter basis.
Key numbers
- Cadmium: means “0.71” (s 0.18) at day 30 to “0.56” (s 0.17) µg/kg DM at day 120 (Table 2, p. 169).
- Lead: means “8.67” (s 3.12) at day 30 to “7.41” (s 3.63) µg/kg DM at day 120 (Table 2).
- Mercury: “0.012”, “0.010”, “0.008”, “0.010” µg/kg DM at days 30, 60, 90, 120 (Table 2).
Methods (brief)
Five millilitres of milk were digested by microwave in nitric and sulphuric acid with hydrogen peroxide. Cadmium and lead were read by electrothermal AAS and mercury by hydride-generation AAS. No detection limits, reference materials or recoveries are reported.
Evidence Fitness
Ten animals from one organic farm in one winter season, with no QA reported. Values are per kg of milk dry matter, so they are not directly comparable with fresh-weight milk data. For reduced-fat-milk this is a proxy: it measures whole goat milk, not reduced-fat cow milk, so that page is not linked. Peer review is unverified.