Overview
Atwa and colleagues measured fourteen elements by ICP-OES in 125 commercial baby and breakfast foods bought in Cairo in 2007 and 2008, reporting dry-weight values for 25 product types, mostly cereal-based weaning foods with milk, plus corn flakes and other breakfast items. Arsenic and mercury were not detected, lead averaged 0.032 mg/kg, and cadmium averaged 0.67 mg/kg. The authors also tested whether adding dry yeast lowered metal levels.
Key numbers
- Lead, product rows: 0.012 to 0.055 mg/kg; mean 0.032228 mg/kg (Table 1).
- Cadmium: mean 0.6752 mg/kg, highest 1.933 mg/kg in a rice, orange and milk product (Table 1).
- Corn flakes: lead 0.034, cadmium 0.214, aluminum 9.424 mg/kg (Table 1).
- Arsenic and mercury: “ND” in every row (Table 1).
Methods (brief)
Homogenized samples were wet digested with nitric and perchloric acids and analyzed by ICP-OES (Optima 2000 DV). No detection limits, reference materials or recoveries are reported. The yeast experiment incubated foods with 5% or 10% dry yeast for 15 or 30 minutes at 37 °C.
Evidence Fitness
A moderate market sample, but the analytical QA is undocumented, sample numbers per product are missing, and the untreated values in Table 3 do not always match Table 1. Despite the title, no plain infant formula row is reported; the products are cereal-based weaning foods, so this is not evidence for milk-based or non-soy infant formula, and no oat or fish product is named. Corn flakes and cereal-with-nuts rows are direct breakfast cereal measurements. The journal header printed is J. Agric. Sci. Mansoura Univ.; the DOI is not printed in the PDF.