Overview
El-Dars and colleagues measured iron, zinc, copper, lead, cadmium and tin in four canned tuna samples and iron, zinc, copper, lead and cadmium in four processed beef products (luncheon meat, burger, frankfurters, oriental sausages) bought in Egyptian supermarkets. Each product was a single sample analysed in triplicate by flame atomic absorption. Lead and cadmium were high in all products.
Key numbers
- Canned tuna: lead 1.51 ± 0.19 to 1.81 ± 0.04 mg/kg, mean 1.7 ± 0.1 mg/kg; cadmium 0.95 ± 0.07 to 3.84 ± 0.16 mg/kg, mean 2.04 ± 1.3 mg/kg; tin mean 2.5 ± 1.1 mg/kg (Table 3, p. 111).
- Beef luncheon meat: lead 2.88 ± 0.20 mg/kg, cadmium 3.54 ± 0.30 mg/kg (Table 5, p. 114).
- Beef frankfurters: lead 2.79 ± 0.23 mg/kg, cadmium 1.97 ± 0.04 mg/kg (Table 5, p. 114).
Methods (brief)
Tuna drained and homogenised; samples oven-dried at 105 °C, dry-ashed at 550 °C and dissolved in 10% nitric acid; flame AAS. Calibration with standards only; no reference material, recovery or detection limit. The basis of results (wet or dry) is not stated.
Evidence Fitness
Very small convenience sample (one unit per meat product, four tuna cans) with no QA, and lead and cadmium levels in the milligram per kilogram range are high for these foods, so analytical quality is uncertain. Luncheon meat here is beef, so it is a processed beef proxy for turkey-luncheon-meat; meat products are also proxies for vegetable-beef-soup and brown-gravy. Those pages are not linked.