Brima et al. 2025 — toxic elements in African foods sold in the UK market

Brima, Haris, and Frei measured arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead in 152 African food and additive samples sold in the UK. The source is broad food-occurrence evidence, with a routeable spices subcategory and additional context for fish, prawns, and non-food additives such as kaun, calabash, and chuna.

Key numbers

• Sample set: 152 total duplicate measurements grouped as agricultural products, fishery products, processed foods including spices, and non-food additives.
• Average concentrations by broad group were reported in micrograms per gram dry weight: agricultural products had As 0.1, Cd 0.6, Hg not detected, and Pb 0.3; fishery products had As 15.4, Cd 0.3, Hg 0.07, and Pb 0.12; spices had As 0.13, Cd 0.1, Hg 0.1, and Pb 0.15; non-food additives had As 2.3, Cd 0.03, Hg not detected, and Pb 3.8.
• The authors report that prawn, kaun, and calabash exceeded hazard-quotient safety thresholds for arsenic, and calabash exceeded the hazard-quotient threshold for lead.
• Total hazard quotients across As, Cd, Hg, and Pb were above 1 for fish, prawn, kaun, calabash, and chuna: 1.01, 2.44, 3.48, 7.74, and 1.11, respectively.
• Incremental lifetime cancer risk exceeded the study guideline for Pb in 16 percent of all analyzed samples, for As in 4 percent, and for Cd in 2 percent.

Methods (brief)

The study measured As, Cd, Hg, and Pb by ICP-MS after acid digestion. The paper reports detection limits and quantification limits in micrograms per liter: As 0.07 and 0.23, Cd 0.04 and 0.13, Hg 0.08 and 0.27, and Pb 0.07 and 0.23. Quality assurance used certified strawberry-leaf material and spike recoveries; reported spike recoveries were As 86.9 percent, Cd 93.5 percent, Hg 110.5 percent, and Pb 94.48 percent.

Arsenic is total arsenic. The authors treat fishery-product arsenic risk separately by assuming 10 percent of total arsenic as inorganic arsenic for HQ and ILCR calculations.

Implications

Certification: The spices subgroup provides broad UK-market occurrence evidence for As, Cd, Hg, and Pb in African spices, but the source page should not be used as a spice-only distribution without the Table 2 subcategory values and sample frame kept attached.

Courses: This is a useful teaching source for separating food matrices from non-food additives; the highest health-risk findings are in kaun, calabash, chuna, fish, and prawns rather than in the spice subgroup alone.

App: The source supports a category-level flag for imported African spices and additives, especially where users may consume kaun, calabash, or chuna alongside foods.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• spices
• seafood
• shellfish
• spices
• fish
• shellfish
• arsenic
• cadmium
• mercury
• lead

Verification notes

• The abstract reports average concentrations for broad categories, including spices; Table 2 contains the subcategory structure used by the authors.
• The source is UK-market evidence for African foods, not primary evidence for African in-country market samples.
• Arsenic values are total arsenic unless otherwise stated; the authors’ risk calculation applies an inorganic-arsenic assumption for fishery products only.

Page history

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