Overview
This study measured copper, total arsenic, and lead by portable X-ray fluorescence in frozen poultry products sold in Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq: imported Brazilian and Turkish chicken thigh and breast, chicken thigh and breast from two local Iraqi commercial producers, local quail thigh and breast, and local quail eggs (n=15 per group, 165 samples total). All values are dry-weight after a 48-hour 60 degC oven-dry step.
Key numbers
Source reports values in ppm (numerically equivalent to mg/kg in solid matrices). All values are dry-weight: samples were oven-dried 48 h at 60 degC before XRF analysis. Each cell is mean +/- standard error across n=15 samples per origin/product group (165 samples total across 11 groups). Values below the XRF detection threshold are reported by the authors as 0.00.
Chicken thigh (dry weight, n=15 per origin):
- Brazilian-origin: Cu 1.57 +/- 0.04, tAs 1.82 +/- 0.06, Pb 0.55 +/- 0.05.
- Turkish-origin: Cu 1.53 +/- 0.05, tAs 1.57 +/- 0.03, Pb 0.43 +/- 0.04.
- Local Iraqi commercial chicken producer A: Cu 1.16 +/- 0.05, tAs 1.52 +/- 0.05, Pb 0.00.
- Local Iraqi commercial chicken producer B: Cu 0.96 +/- 0.04, tAs 1.37 +/- 0.04, Pb 0.00.
Chicken breast (dry weight, n=15 per origin):
- Brazilian-origin: Cu 1.67 +/- 0.03, tAs 1.82 +/- 0.07, Pb 0.50 +/- 0.03.
- Turkish-origin: Cu 1.65 +/- 0.04, tAs 1.77 +/- 0.04, Pb 0.49 +/- 0.03.
- Local Iraqi commercial chicken producer A: Cu 1.36 +/- 0.05, tAs 1.66 +/- 0.04, Pb 0.00.
- Local Iraqi commercial chicken producer B: Cu 1.03 +/- 0.03, tAs 1.58 +/- 0.03, Pb 0.00.
Local quail (dry weight, n=15 per cut/product):
- Quail thigh: Cu 1.12 +/- 0.04, tAs 1.24 +/- 0.04, Pb 0.00.
- Quail breast: Cu 1.01 +/- 0.03, tAs 1.24 +/- 0.04, Pb 0.00.
- Quail eggs: Cu 1.28 +/- 0.08, tAs 1.70 +/- 0.06, Pb 0.00.
Permissible-limit comparators the source places alongside its table: Cu 200 ppm, tAs 2 ppm, Pb 0.5 ppm in solids (1 ppm in liquids). The authors attribute the Pb limit to ANZFA (2001).
The authors report Pb in Brazilian-origin chicken thigh as above the ANZFA 0.5 ppm comparator and Pb in Turkish-origin and Brazilian-origin chicken breast as at or just under the comparator. Pb was not detected in either local commercial producer’s chicken, in quail meat, or in quail eggs.
Methods
Cu, tAs, and Pb were determined by portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry on a Sky Ray 9000 XRF analyzer. Sample prep: ~15 g per sample oven-dried 48 h at 60 degC, crushed, then 5 g of dried material taken for XRF. Reported values are therefore on a dry-weight basis. Statistical comparison used one-way ANOVA with Duncan’s multiple range test at p⇐0.05 (SAS 2002-2003); results are mean +/- standard error.
Arsenic is reported as total arsenic; no arsenic speciation (iAs vs tAs) is provided. The paper does not report XRF detection limits, reference-material recoveries, or matrix-spike validation, so the 0.00 values listed for Pb in local chicken, quail meat, and quail eggs are best read as “below the XRF method’s working detection threshold” rather than as confirmed absence.
Implications
The source supports poultry product occurrence routing for Erbil/Kurdistan-region market and import contexts. Imported (Brazilian- and Turkish-origin) frozen chicken muscle is the dominant Pb signal in this dataset; both locally produced commercial chicken and locally produced quail products fell below the XRF detection threshold for Pb. Dry-weight basis must be preserved when routing into product-category occurrence tables, because comparison to wet-weight literature without conversion will overstate concentrations roughly threefold for muscle tissue.
Related evidence
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