Overview
Farombi and colleagues analysed 72 samples of four pepper types from six Osogbo markets for cadmium, iron, lead, zinc, cobalt and chromium by flame AAS. Table 1 gives means per pepper type and market, and the low-traffic Shasha market had the lowest means for all six metals.
Key numbers
- Bell pepper (tatashe), lead: 0.004 to 0.008 ppm across the high-traffic markets, for example 0.008±0.000 ppm at Igbona (Table 1).
- Bell pepper (tatashe), cadmium: 0.013±0.000 ppm (Ota-Efun) to 0.022±0.001 ppm (Oja-Oba, Igbona) (Table 1).
- Abstract ranges across all peppers: cadmium 0.008 to 0.022 ppm, lead 0.002 to 0.009 ppm.
Methods (brief)
Samples were washed, oven-dried at 80 C, ground, wet-digested with hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric, nitric and perchloric acids and analysed by flame AAS with duplicate readings. No reference material, recovery or detection limit is reported.
Evidence Fitness
A reasonable market sample count, but no detection limits, and several cadmium and lead means are near or below what flame AAS typically achieves for this digest, so low values are uncertain. Basis is not labeled. Bell pepper colour is not stated, so this is not linked to the green bell pepper page.