Overview
Cammerata and colleagues micronised six Italian durum wheat lots and air-classified them into coarse bran-enriched (F) and fine (G) fractions, then made pasta from semolina and from selected fractions. Total arsenic, cadmium, nickel and lead were measured by ICP-OES in each product (Tables 1 to 4), alongside mycotoxins. Fine fractions carried much less arsenic and lead than the micronised grain, and pasta made from fine fractions had arsenic similar to or below semolina pasta.
Key numbers
- Micronised whole grain, total arsenic: cv. Maestà 0.478 ± 0.037, cv. Saragolla 0.518, cv. Iride 0.582 µg/g dry matter; fine fraction G280 0.025, 0.034 and 0.050 µg/g (Tables 1-2, pp. 8-9).
- Micronised whole grain, lead: cv. Maestà 0.157 ± 0.019 and cv. Saragolla 0.152 ± 0.007 µg/g; cv. Iride 0.022 ± 0.005 µg/g (Table 1, pp. 8-9).
- Roller-milled semolina, total arsenic: 0.053 (Saragolla, Lazio), 0.066 (Antalis, Basilicata) and 0.089 µg/g (Antalis, Marche); lead 0.013, 0.144 and 0.042 µg/g (Table 3, p. 10).
- Dried pasta, total arsenic: semolina pasta 0.048 to 0.063 µg/g; pasta from fine fraction G250 0.023 to 0.044 µg/g; pasta from coarse fraction F250 0.026 to 0.084 µg/g (Table 4, p. 11).
Methods (brief)
Samples were microwave-digested in nitric acid, hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide and read on a PerkinElmer 8000 DV ICP-OES with an ultrasonic nebulizer, in triplicate, reported as mean ± standard error on a dry matter basis. A rice reference material (printed as “ERM-BC21”) was used for accuracy, but recoveries and numeric detection limits are not reported. Pasta was measured for arsenic only.
Evidence Fitness
A pilot-scale processing study of six field lots with three analytical replicates each, so it shows processing effects rather than retail occurrence. Missing detection limits and some cadmium values near ICP-OES capability limit the low-end values; the tables were read from page images because the PDF text layer is overlaid. The pasta is white durum semolina or air-classified fraction pasta, not whole-wheat pasta, so it is a proxy for whole-wheat-pasta; the flours and fractions are proxies for blueberry-muffin and doughnut. Those thin pages are not linked.