Overview
Bilandžić and colleagues bought 154 beef and pork cuts in Zagreb in the first half of 2020 and measured 13 elements by ICP-MS. Tables 3 and 4 give mean ± SD and range per cut on a wet-weight basis. Cadmium was low in muscle cuts and high in kidney, and lead stayed in the low µg/kg range.
Key numbers
- Cadmium: beef kidney 227 ± 195 µg/kg (range 74.7-541), pork kidney 175 ± 44.8 µg/kg; beef loin, neck and shoulder and pork loin <1.3 µg/kg (Table 4, p. 7).
- Lead: beef fat 19.8 ± 21.0 µg/kg, beef kidney 18.5 ± 14.3 µg/kg, pork loin 0.97 ± 0.22 µg/kg (Table 4).
- Arsenic: beef mixed meat 34.7 ± 86.6 µg/kg (range 0.86-249), pork fat 23.9 ± 21.9 µg/kg (Table 4).
Methods (brief)
Microwave digestion with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide and ICP-MS (He collision mode). DORM-4 fish protein recoveries were 93.6 to 117.8%, with spiked samples for aluminum, magnesium, manganese and molybdenum. LODs for meat: arsenic 1.3, cadmium 0.7 and lead 0.7 µg/kg.
Evidence Fitness
A reasonable retail sample (10 to 14 per cut) with CRM control. Means are computed only from results above LOD, so cuts with non-detects are biased upward. There are some printing errors: a pork fat iron range of ‘222-0.58’, an impossible pork loin aluminum SD, a pork row labelled ‘Cu’, and ‘<1.3’ cadmium cells that match the arsenic LOD. Beef cuts are a proxy for Vegetable beef soup, which is not linked.