Overview
Esho and colleagues bought carrot and potato at four markets in Ilesa East and Obokun-Oriade, Osun State, in April and June 2025 and measured cadmium, lead, nickel, iron and copper by flame AAS after aqua regia digestion. Tables 1 and 2 give per-market means and an overall average for each vegetable on a dried basis. Carrot carried more cadmium and lead than potato.
Key numbers
- Carrot, all markets: cadmium 0.235 ± 0.04 mg/kg, lead 0.718 ± 0.148 mg/kg (Table 1, p. 12).
- Carrot, Atakumosa market: cadmium 0.550 ± 0.007 mg/kg, lead 0.75 ± 0.13 mg/kg (Table 1, p. 12).
- Potato, all markets: cadmium 0.0488 ± 0.037 mg/kg, lead 0.4188 ± 0.26 mg/kg (Table 2, p. 13).
Methods (brief)
Samples were washed, oven-dried at 60 °C, ground and digested in aqua regia, then read on a PerkinElmer Analyst 400 flame AAS. Detection limits were cadmium 0.002 and lead 0.01 mg/kg. NIST SRM 1573a tomato leaves gave recoveries of 93.5 to 104%, with blanks and duplicates every 10 samples.
Evidence Fitness
A modest, recent market survey with stated detection limits and reference-material QA. Dispersion is not defined and the per-market sample count must be inferred (about 9). Iron near 1 to 3 mg/kg dry weight is unusually low. One sentence in the discussion swaps carrot and potato; the tables are followed. Raw carrot and potato are proxies for root-vegetable-purees; that page is not linked. Table 3 combines both vegetables and is not used.