Overview
Danezis and colleagues measured 61 elements by ICP-MS in 105 Greek Gruyère-type hard cheeses from nine regions, made from sheep, goat or cow milk or mixtures, to test authentication by element fingerprint and to assess safety and nutrition. Regional means are given with standard errors. Toxic elements were low, with arsenic the largest share of its tolerable intake.
Key numbers
- Lead: regional means 20 to 38 µg/kg; Crete 28 ± 7 (SEM, n = 22) (Table 3).
- Cadmium: regional means 3.8 to 6.2 µg/kg (Table 3).
- Arsenic: 25 µg/kg in Central Greece but 170 to 240 µg/kg in the other regions (Table 3).
- Cheese intake supplies about 12.8% of the arsenic PTWI and 0.91% of the lead PTWI for Greek consumers (Table 7).
Methods (brief)
Half a gram of cheese was microwave-digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide and analysed by ICP-MS with internal standards. Skimmed milk powder (ERM-BD151) gave recoveries of 97% for lead and 114% for cadmium; overall recoveries were 67 to 121% apart from selenium.
Evidence Fitness
A good-sized, well-controlled survey with regional detail, but only regional means with standard errors are printed and the milk-type breakdown is in supplements not available here. This is a Greek Gruyère-type cheese, a proxy for Swiss cheese and Monterey Jack, neither of which was measured. Arsenic recoveries are not reported, so the high arsenic values cannot be checked against a reference.