Overview
The authors bought ten white wheat flours (five local, five imported) in Peja, Kosovo, in early 2024 and measured iron, copper, zinc, manganese, lead, cadmium and arsenic by MP-AES, along with baking-quality parameters. Lead, cadmium and arsenic were reported as not detected in every sample, but no detection limit is given. Imported flours had more iron and copper than local ones.
Key numbers
- Lead, cadmium and arsenic: “n.d” (not detected) in all ten flours (Table 2).
- Iron: 10.25 ± 5.54 mg/kg (local) vs 20.38 ± 9.68 mg/kg (imported), p < 0.05 (Table 2).
- Zinc: 5.71 to 20.54 mg/kg across samples (Table 2).
Methods (brief)
Half a gram of flour was digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide in a microwave system and analyzed on an Agilent 4200 MP-AES. No LOD, LOQ, reference material, recovery or blank results are reported, and the digestion volumes are stated two different ways.
Evidence Fitness
The “not detected” results for lead, cadmium and arsenic cannot be interpreted without a detection limit, and MP-AES usually cannot reach the low µg/kg levels typical of flour, so this is weak evidence of absence. The reference list includes a placeholder DOI. White flour is an ingredient proxy for pie-crust, doughnut, white-cake, blueberry-muffin, wheat-cereal-biscuits and whole-wheat-pasta, which are not linked; no finished products or whole-wheat flours were tested.