Overview
Litrenta and colleagues bought 120 ready-to-eat fish and meat products in Sicily in January 2024 and measured bisphenols and 11 elements by ICP-MS. Tables 5 and 6 give mean ± SD (mg/kg) per product type. Lead in several canned meat products exceeded the EU 0.10 mg/kg meat limit, and cadmium exceeded 0.05 mg/kg in one canned pork product.
Key numbers
- Canned meat lead: canned beef and pork pâté 0.28 ± 0.02 mg/kg, canned meat broth 0.20 ± 0.02, canned cooked ham 0.20 ± 0.02, canned luncheon chicken meat 0.20 ± 0.01 mg/kg (Table 6, p. 16).
- Canned minced pork and ham with bacon: cadmium 0.10 ± 0.02 mg/kg (Table 6).
- Fish: cuttlefish ink cadmium 0.91 ± 0.05 and lead 0.31 ± 0.04 mg/kg; canned natural tuna lead 0.03 ± 0.01 mg/kg (Table 5, pp. 14-15).
- Tin: up to 1.69 ± 0.12 mg/kg (canned luncheon chicken meat, Table 6).
Methods (brief)
Microwave digestion with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide and ICP-MS (iCAP-Q), each sample in triplicate. Certified reference materials ERM-CE278k and ERM-BB184 were digested with the samples. LODs, LOQs and recoveries are in Supplementary Table S2, which was not available.
Evidence Fitness
Small product groups (three to five samples) of mixed origin and packaging, analysed as sold. The basis is not stated, and Table 6 arsenic dashes are undefined. The canned luncheon chicken meat is a proxy for Turkey luncheon meat, and the canned meat broth and beef products are proxies for Vegetable beef soup; neither thin page is linked. The text’s fish lead range omits the cuttlefish ink value in Table 5.