Overview
Korfali and Abou Hamdan measured lead, cadmium, mercury, tin, aluminum, chromium, iron, zinc and copper in the drained contents of 45 canned foods (tuna, sardine, luncheon meat, hot dogs, liver paste, mushroom, corn, artichoke, green beans, fava beans, chickpeas and dried beans) from Lebanese supermarkets. Can walls and lids were scanned by handheld XRF to relate can composition to food levels. Tables 4 to 6 give mean ± SD and range per food category and type.
Key numbers
- Canned vegetables and legumes: lead mean 0.057 ± 0.015 µg/g, range 0.001 to 0.270 µg/g; cadmium mean 0.118 ± 0.065 µg/g (Table 6).
- Canned tuna: cadmium mean 0.246 ± 0.114 µg/g, range 0.026 to 0.645; mercury mean 0.176 ± 0.035 µg/g, maximum 0.395 µg/g (Table 6).
- Canned green beans of Lebanese manufacture: cadmium 0.135 µg/g; tin up to 40 µg/g (text, pp. 25 and 27).
- Canned vegetables: tin mean 63.50 ± 37.89 µg/g, maximum 179 µg/g in artichoke (Table 5).
Methods (brief)
Liquid was drained, solids homogenized and digested with hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid. Cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead and zinc by graphite furnace AAS; aluminum, mercury and tin by ICP-MS. Certified reference materials (NIST 1573a, NIST 1556b) gave recoveries of 94 to 102%. Detection limits are not reported.
Evidence Fitness
A small market survey with good CRM checks but no per-type sample counts below the category level and no detection limits. Results are on drained canned food as sold. Mercury is total mercury. Canned green beans are measured directly but are pooled with other vegetables in the tables; only a few single green bean values appear in the text. The paper has no pasta, soup or plant-protein products, so it is only a canned-food proxy for canned-spaghetti, vegetable-beef-soup and veggie-burger, which are not linked.