Overview
The authors bought 41 honeys in Algeria and Poland and measured arsenic, cadmium and lead by ICP-MS and mercury by direct amalgamation AAS, with risk indices. Algerian honeys had higher arsenic and Polish honeys higher lead; three Polish samples exceeded the EU lead limit of 100 µg/kg.
Key numbers
- Lead median 20.371 µg/kg (Algeria) vs 60.811 µg/kg (Poland); Polish maximum 755.853 µg/kg in a dark multifloral honey (Table 1).
- Arsenic median 17.615 µg/kg (Algeria) vs 1.570 µg/kg (Poland) (Table 1).
- Cadmium mean 12.036 ± 24.813 µg/kg, maximum 154.562 µg/kg; mercury mean 1.593 ± 1.044 µg/kg, all 41 samples (Table 1).
Methods (brief)
Closed-vessel microwave digestion with HNO3; ICP-MS (NexION 300D) for cadmium, lead and arsenic (KED mode); AMA-254 for mercury. LODs 0.019 (arsenic), 0.017 (cadmium) and 0.16 µg/kg (lead). CRM INCT-MPH-2 recoveries 97.5 to 104%.
Evidence Fitness
Retail samples with a good method and CRM control, but small groups (one to three per botanical type) and no dates. Table 1 does not label each botanical row by country; country is inferred from order and counts. Several Polish arsenic values equal the LOD, and the Algerian arsenic minimum conflicts with the single-sample rows printed below the detection limit; these are flagged in the extraction. Honey is a proxy for pancake-syrup and does not link that page.