Overview
The authors bought onion, tomato and celery of local and coastal origin at the main market in Chachapoyas in November 2020 and measured arsenic, chromium, cadmium and lead by microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry after drying and ashing. Lead was above the Codex and EU level of 0.1 mg/kg in every group; the other metals were low.
Key numbers
- Lead (Table 2, mg/kg): local onion 0.203, coastal onion 0.167, local tomato 0.183, coastal tomato 0.210, local celery 0.153, coastal celery 0.167.
- Arsenic (Table 2, mg/kg): 0.220 to 0.307, highest in celery.
- Cadmium (Table 2, mg/kg): 0.000 to 0.007.
Methods (brief)
Edible parts were washed, dried at 105 °C, ashed at 450 °C, taken up in hydrochloric acid and read on an Agilent 4100 MP-AES. Table 1 gives the same means rounded to two decimals with standard deviations. No reference material, recovery or detection limit is reported.
Evidence Fitness
Only three samples per vegetable and origin, from one market in one month, with no quality-control data or detection limits. Values appear to be on a dry-weight basis, while the Codex and EU limits they are compared with are fresh weight. Values printed as 0.000 are treated as non-detects. Onion, tomato and celery bear directly on non-root vegetables.