Overview
This study measured cadmium by graphite furnace AAS in raw meats and at each stage of making a dry fermented salami and a cooked ham, comparing domestic Slovak raw materials with raw materials from West Europe. Cadmium rose from the raw meats to the homogenized batters and final products, and was higher in products made from foreign raw materials.
Key numbers
- Raw pork for salami: cadmium mean 0.0435 ppm (domestic) and 0.0901 ppm (foreign) (Table 1, p. 103).
- Raw pork thigh for ham: cadmium mean 0.0204 ppm (domestic) and 0.0523 ppm (foreign) (Table 2, p. 104).
- Final salami: 0.2387 ppm (domestic) and 0.3728 ppm (foreign); final ham: 0.0810 and 0.1453 ppm (Tables 1-2).
Methods (brief)
Frozen samples were dried at 105 °C, mineralized in hot nitric acid and analyzed by graphite furnace AAS. Tables give mean, minimum, median, maximum, SD and SEM. No detection limits, reference materials or recoveries are reported, and the number of samples per group is not stated.
Evidence Fitness
Cadmium only, with no stated QA and an unclear basis (dried samples, results simply in ppm). Table 2 is titled “lead” but its rows and the text are cadmium. The raw pork and pork thigh are uncooked raw materials, a proxy for pork-chop (a cooked chop was not measured), so that page is not linked.