Divrikli et al. 2006 - metals in western Anatolia spices and herbal plants

Divrikli and colleagues measured copper, cadmium, lead, nickel, chromium, iron, manganese, and zinc in eleven spice and herbal plant species collected from farms in western Anatolia, Turkey. The study is occurrence evidence for herbs-and-spices and botanical raw materials, with values reported for the plant parts selected to match local consumption. Results are dry-weight total elemental measurements; chromium is total Cr, not Cr-VI.

Key numbers

All values are from Tables 2 and 3 and are reported as mean +/- SD in µg g−1 on a dry-weight basis. The extracted text renders the microgram unit as lg g)1; the unit is preserved here as micrograms per gram without conversion. ND means the paper reports “not determined.”

The abstract summarizes the same table ranges as Cu 3.8-35.4 µg g−1, Cd 0.2-2.7 µg g−1, Pb 0.1-2.8 µg g−1, Ni 1.4-11.3 µg g−1, Cr 0.1-9.7 µg g−1, Fe 30.0-945.3 µg g−1, Mn 7.9-152.5 µg g−1, and Zn 5.2-83.7 µg g−1.

Methods (brief)

The authors collected rosemary, basil, laurel, chard, marjoram, sheep sorrel, centaury, yarrow, marshmallow, lavender, and mullein from farmers in western Anatolia from June to October 2003. Four samples and 2 kg per species were collected, then the consumed roots, leaves, or flowers were washed, cut, dried at 25 °C for 3 days, oven-dried at 80 °C for 12 h, ground, and sieved. One-gram portions were digested with HNO3-HClO4-H2O2, followed by H2SO4 and additional acid mixture, and diluted to 25 mL with 1 M HNO3. Cu, Fe, Ni, Cd, Mn, Pb, Cr, and Zn were measured by flame atomic absorption spectrometry on a Perkin Elmer AAnalyst 700; spike recoveries were reported as greater than 95%.

Implications

Certification: The page contributes Turkey occurrence evidence for herbs-and-spices and botanical raw materials, especially Cd, Pb, Ni, and total Cr in dried plant parts. Because the paper reports roots, leaves, and flowers separately, downstream synthesis should keep plant-part basis visible rather than collapsing all values into a single spice average.

Courses: This is a compact table-reading example for interpreting dry-weight spice/herb occurrence data with multiple plant parts, ND cells, and total elemental chromium rather than Cr-VI.

App: The source can support spices, herbs-and-spices, herbal-botanicals, and dried-herbs profiles with a western Anatolia/Turkey jurisdiction note.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• spices
• supplements-botanicals-herbs
• herbs-and-spices
• spices
• herbal-botanicals
• dried-herbs
• copper
• cadmium
• lead
• nickel
• chromium
• iron
• manganese
• zinc

Verification notes

• Identity checks on 2026-06-09: DOI 10.1111/j.1365-2621.2005.01140.x, raw handle MFK_divrikli2006, and cite-key divrikli2006-spices-herbal-plants-metals returned no existing source page hits before creation.
• All Key numbers values were re-checked against /tmp/hmi-june9-087.txt extracted with pdftotext -layout, including Tables 2 and 3 and the abstract range statement. Units are copied on the original dry-weight microgram-per-gram basis and not converted.
• Speciation check: the paper reports total elemental Cu, Cd, Pb, Ni, Cr, Fe, Mn, and Zn by flame AAS. Chromium is not reported as Cr-VI.
• Brand firewall check: samples were collected from farmers rather than named brands; no brand or farm identity is attached to a contamination value.
• Closed vocabulary check: products, ingredients, metals, and wiki-page links use slugs present in docs/gpt-collaboration/taxonomy-snapshot.md. Species-specific names such as rosemary, basil, laurel, marjoram, sheep sorrel, centaury, yarrow, marshmallow, lavender, and mullein do not all have closed ingredient slugs, so they remain matrix labels and table text only.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.