Heavy Metal Accumulation in Fruits and Vegetables and Human Health Risk Assessment: Findings From Maharashtra, India

Overview

This study quantified Pb, Cd, total As, and total Hg in 24 frequently consumed crop types — 11 vegetables and 13 fruits/legumes — grown on farms surrounding the industrialized city of Solapur in Maharashtra, India, and in native soil at six sampling locations within a roughly 10 km radius of the city’s industrial hub. Samples were collected during winter (January) and summer (April) of 2017. Crops were analysed by ICP-MS (Agilent 7500) after acid digestion following EPA Method 3050B and FSSAI guidance. Mean concentrations across all 24 commodities were Pb 0.17 ± 0.38 mg/kg > Hg 0.06 ± 0.09 mg/kg > Cd 0.02 ± 0.007 mg/kg > As 0.002 ± 0.003 mg/kg. Vegetables accumulated more metal than fruits across all four analytes; the authors attribute this to higher transpiration rates, greater leaf surface area and physical contamination from dust and rainwater. Garlic exhibited the highest Cd concentration (0.37 mg/kg, exceeding the WHO/FAO standard of 0.2 mg/kg), sugarcane the highest Pb (1.741 mg/kg), and sorghum the highest Hg (0.356 mg/kg). Hazard Index exceeded 1 for garlic (HI ≈ 3.00, driven by Cd then Pb) and sugarcane (HI ≈ 2.22, driven by Pb), indicating non-carcinogenic health concern at modeled intakes. Soil concentrations at all six sites remained below Indian and EU regulatory thresholds.

Key numbers

n = 24 commodity types (11 vegetables, 13 fruits/legumes); 6 soil sampling sites (winter + summer 2017).
Analytical method: ICP-MS Agilent 7500; acid digestion per EPA Method 3050B (conc. HNO3 + conc. HCl + 30% H2O2 with heating); 1–2 g sample digested, diluted to 100 mL, centrifuged.
Sample preparation: rinsed with distilled then deionized water, air-dried, crushed, stored at room temperature.
Reporting basis: mg/kg, basis not explicitly stated. Paper compares directly to WHO/FAO and Indian standards (which are fresh-weight basis), and reports values consistent with fresh-weight figures; the air-dried preparation step likely represents surface-drying for storage rather than drying to constant weight.
Speciation: total metals only (tAs and tHg; no inorganic arsenic or methylmercury speciation reported).
Detection: Hg, As, Cd, Cr below detection limit (<0.01, <0.5, <0.01, <0.1 mg/kg respectively) in soil at most sites; censored values reported as “<LOD” or “Nil” in Table 2.

Whole-corpus means (mg/kg, Figure 2):

Total (all 24): Pb 0.173, Cd 0.022, As 0.002, Hg 0.064.
Vegetables only: Pb 0.344, Cd 0.043, As 0.004, Hg 0.095.
Fruits/legumes only: Pb 0.052, Cd 0.006, As 0.002, Hg 0.041.

Per-commodity Pb, Cd, As, Hg (mg/kg, Table 4) — highest accumulators:

Garlic (Allium sativum): Pb 0.774, Cd 0.37, As 0.007, Hg 0.123.
Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum): Pb 1.741, Cd 0.001, As 0.001, Hg 0.035.
Potato (Solanum tuberosum): Pb 0.542, Cd 0.023, As 0.007, Hg 0.013.
Sorghum (Sorghum arundinaceum): Pb 0.034, Cd 0.001, As 0.001, Hg 0.356.
Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum, methi leaves): Pb 0.001, Cd 0.003, As 0.001, Hg 0.235.
Tamarind (Tamarindus indica): Pb 0.244, Cd 0.001, As 0.001, Hg 0.147.
Ginger (Zingiber officinale): Pb 0.11, Cd 0.001, As 0.005, Hg 0.14.
Cabbage (Brassica oleracea): Pb 0.003, Cd 0.006, As 0.002, Hg 0.001.

Standards comparison (paper’s analysis, fresh-weight basis assumed):

Cd in garlic (0.37 mg/kg) exceeds WHO/FAO 0.2 mg/kg but within Indian 1.5 mg/kg.
Hg in garlic (0.123), sugarcane (0.035), tamarind (0.147), sorghum (0.356), ginger (0.14) and fenugreek (0.235) all exceed WHO/FAO 0.03 mg/kg standard.
Pb in all sampled commodities within both Indian (2.5 mg/kg) and WHO/FAO (5.0 mg/kg) standards.
Soil heavy metals at all six sites below Indian and EU standards.

Human health risk (Table 4, exposure model):

Daily intake of metal (DIM) modeled with food intake 0.280 kg/person/day and body weight 56 kg/person.
Oral RfD: As 0.0003, Cd 0.001, Hg 0.01, Pb 0.004 mg/kg/day (USEPA).
HRI > 1 (single metal): garlic Cd HRI = 1.85; sugarcane Pb HRI = 2.176.
HI (sum of HRIs across Pb, Cd, As, Hg): garlic 2.996, sugarcane 2.215, potato 0.916, fenugreek 0.150, tamarind 0.400; HI < 1 for all other commodities. HI > 1 indicates non-carcinogenic health risk.

Methods (brief)

ICP-MS quantification (Agilent 7500) of Pb, Cd, As, and Hg in vegetable, fruit, and soil samples. Crop digestion used the repeated-infusion EPA 3050B procedure (conc. HNO3, conc. HCl, 30% H2O2 with heating), aligned with FSSAI Manual of Methods of Analysis of Foods — Metals. Laboratory glassware was rinsed with 1.5% v/v HNO3 and distilled water between uses to prevent carryover. Soil samples (1 kg per site) collected with a stainless steel auger at 50, 150, and 300 cm depths and mixed for a composite sample. Soil also analysed for pH, bulk density, porosity, texture, sand/clay/silt percentages, and additional metals (Ni, Cu, Zn, Mn, Cr). Crops sourced from Chandrahal (SQ-1) farms. No formal LOD/LOQ values stated; censored soil values reported as “<0.01”, “<0.5”, “<0.05”, “<0.1” or “Nil”. No analyte speciation: total As and total Hg only.

The exposure model assumes a fixed daily intake of 0.280 kg/person/day across all commodities and an average body weight of 56 kg/person — likely a per-person aggregate for all 24 commodities combined rather than per-commodity, though the paper does not disambiguate. HRI and HI values in Table 4 are therefore upper-bound estimates if each commodity is treated as the sole dietary contributor.

Implications

Certification (program-only context, not for public wiki): Garlic and sugarcane are flagged as commodities with HI > 1 in this Indian dataset. The Cd value for garlic (0.37 mg/kg, fresh weight assumed) is the most actionable single-commodity finding — it exceeds the WHO/FAO standard by ~85% and is supported by an independent biological mechanism (garlic is a documented Cd hyperaccumulator used in phytoremediation). The widespread Hg exceedances across multiple commodities (sorghum, fenugreek, garlic, ginger, tamarind) are noteworthy because Hg is rarely the primary concern in vegetable/fruit surveillance and may reflect industrial atmospheric deposition near Solapur’s textile and power-loom industries.

Courses: Useful for illustrating (1) multi-commodity occurrence surveillance methodology, (2) coupling soil and produce sampling to test the soil-to-plant translocation hypothesis, (3) the HRI/HI exposure framework with explicit RfD values and a worked example, and (4) how a single commodity (garlic) with hyperaccumulator biology can dominate dietary risk even when other commodities are clean.

App: Garlic, sugarcane, sorghum, fenugreek, tamarind, and ginger add Indian-context data points for the regional contamination layer. The model can flag garlic specifically as a Cd-concern commodity when ingredient lists include garlic from Indian-sourced supply chains.

Verification notes

This page was merge-enhanced on 2026-05-19 from a prior version (updated: 2026-05-13) ingested via the FM_9434655 markdown route. The PDF at raw/Manual Fetch Kimi /01_Fruits_and_Fruit_Products/01_Fruits_and_Fruit_Products/Heavy Metal Accumulation in Fruits and Vegetables and Its Health Risk Assessment.pdf was re-read directly to verify and correct the earlier ingest. Defects corrected:

Authors corrected. Prior page listed “Mawari G, Kumar P, Jaroli P, Devnani M, Singh B, Semwal J” — fabricated. Actual byline (page 1, with affiliations and ORCID confirmation page 9): Govind Mawari, Naresh Kumar, Sayan Sarkar, Mradul Kumar Daga, Mongjam Meghachandra Singh, Tushar Kant Joshi, Naushad Ahmed Khan.
Title corrected. Prior title omitted the “and Human Health Risk Assessment: Findings From” portion. Full title from page 1 restored.
Location specified. Prior page said “Maharashtra, India” generally; paper specifies the industrialized city of Solapur (page 2, Materials and Methods).
Soil claim corrected. Prior page asserted “Soil concentrations exceeded background values for Pb at several sites, suggesting anthropogenic contamination is a contributing driver.” Paper actually states (page 5, Results): “Heavy metal concentrations were found to be below the permissible levels set by Indian and European standards (Table 3).” The corrected page reflects this.
Per-commodity values added. Prior page omitted Table 4 specifics. Garlic Cd 0.37, sugarcane Pb 1.741, sorghum Hg 0.356, and the WHO/FAO exceedance pattern are now in Key numbers.
HRI/HI added. Prior page did not mention the HRI > 1 and HI > 1 findings for garlic and sugarcane. These are the paper’s primary human-health conclusions; added with explicit numerical values from Table 4.
Reporting basis clarified. Prior page asserted fresh weight without source citation; paper does not explicitly state basis, though direct comparison to WHO/FAO standards (which are fresh-weight) implies the same. Note added.
Speciation flagged. Prior page noted “total metals only” parenthetically; promoted to explicit Key-numbers item.
License added. Paper is CC BY-NC 4.0 (page 1 footer). Prior page said license: unknown.
Ingredients trimmed to broad slugs. Prior page listed [[ingredients/herbal-botanicals]] (poor fit for the commodity mix in Table 1), [[ingredients/potatoes]], [[ingredients/vegetables]], [[ingredients/fruit]]. Trimmed to the three broad slugs; routing layer fans out to sibling pages per Part 5b.
Sample size context corrected. sample_n = 24 is the number of commodity types, not the number of independent samples; per-commodity sample count is not disaggregated in the paper. Note added in sample_population.
Near-duplicate path recorded. The original PDF in the Manual Fetch Kimi tree is documented in near_duplicates so future identity checks resolve to this page.

The Mawari et al. 2022 paper on drinking water (cite_key mawari2022-heavy-metals-drinking-water-india) is a separate, distinct paper from a different study and is unrelated to this one; matched on author lastname only.

Audit subagent 2026-05-19 (REVISE verdict, one ❌ finding): The subagent flagged Potato HI = 0.916 as inconsistent with Table 4, asserting Table 4 reports Potato HI = 0.2958333. Verified against Table 4 directly (page 6): row 3 (Ginger) HI = 0.2958333; row 4 (Potato) HI = 0.9156667 ≈ 0.916. The 0.916 value in the wiki page is correct and confirmed by the row-level HRI sum (Potato: HRI Cd 0.115 + HRI Pb 0.6775 + HRI As 0.1166667 + HRI Hg 0.0065 = 0.9156667). The subagent’s finding is a false positive caused by row mis-alignment between Ginger (row 3) and Potato (row 4). No change applied. The subagent’s ⚠️ concerns about the Implications/App framing were considered — both are scoped as program-only/downstream-app context, not as wiki claims, and remain unchanged.

Merge-enhance re-pass 2026-05-31 (PDF re-encountered in raw/manual-fetch/Kimi_Agent_Download Corruption Issue/papers/01_Fruits_and_Fruit_Products/, flagged via routing_malformed advisory “missing optional routing-input fields”):

Products populated. Prior frontmatter had products: [] (advisory: routing layer falling back to broad scope via matrices only). The paper’s 24 commodities map to four existing Cat 4 Step 0 Lock product rows: root-tuber-vegetables (potato, carrot, radish, garlic, ginger, onion), non-root-vegetables (brinjal, cucumber, tomato, okra, sugarcane, sorghum, broad/mung/cream beans, chickpea, red gram, green peas), leafy-vegetables-other (cabbage, fenugreek/methi leaves), fresh-fruit (apple, orange, papaya, tamarind). All four destinations are existing scaffolded pages; no new product pages created.
Sampling year recorded. sampling_year_range: null → 2017 (paper page 2, Materials and Methods: “winter (January) and summer (April) in the year 2017”).
Near-duplicate path added. Kimi Agent Download Corruption Issue tree path added to near_duplicates so future identity checks resolve to this page.

Audit subagent 2026-05-31 (PROMOTE verdict, one ⚠️ routing-precision concern, verified and applied):

Check 1 (numerical fidelity), Check 3 (speciation/methods), Check 4 (brand firewall), Check 5 (wiki/HMTc firewall): all ✅.
Check 2 (slug vocabulary): ⚠️ concern that the broad non-root-vegetables routing silently absorbed 6 legume commodities (broad beans, chickpea, mung beans, cream beans, green peas, red gram) and the grain crop sorghum that would route more accurately to legumes-pulses-other (Cat 4 Row 8) and other-grain-products (Cat 3 Row 11) respectively. Verified both destination pages exist with appropriate scope (legumes-pulses-other: “Beans, lentils, chickpeas, split peas”; other-grain-products: “oat, millet, quinoa, barley” — sorghum is a millet-adjacent cereal grain). Applied: added both to products array and to “Wiki pages this source touches.” Non-root-vegetables retained as a wide-net catch for sugarcane (which has no clean product home), brinjal/eggplant, cucumber, tomato, okra. The product count moves from 4 → 6.
The audit also surfaced a 1-count minor discrepancy in the wiki page’s “11 vegetables and 13 fruits/legumes” framing vs Table 1’s actual split of 10 in the vegetable block / 14 in the fruit block (the paper itself oddly classifies brinjal, cucumber, okra as “fruits”). Not a wiki-side defect — the wiki summary aligns with biological vegetable/fruit classification rather than the paper’s idiosyncratic table grouping. Left unchanged.

2026-06-08 byte-identical filesystem-copy enhancement: added a third entry to near_duplicates recording the Kimi agent’s June 8 placement of the same paper PDF under raw/Manual Fetch Kimi /June 8/Kimi_Agent_Download Corruption Issue/_extracted_01_Fruits_and_Fruit_Products/01_Fruits_and_Fruit_Products/Heavy Metal Accumulation in Fruits and Vegetables and Its Health Risk Assessment.pdf. SHA-256 verified byte-identical to the two prior near_duplicates entries (48206ac5013a1b5d2af573834afef08e5b819bc5dffdb64f14a64cd1d5cb43d5). Manual-fetch loop now recognizes this third Kimi-folder location as already-ingested. No claim, value, slug, exposure number, key-numbers, or HMTc-firewall change. No new audit cycle spawned because no body or evidence-bearing frontmatter changed.

Wiki pages this source touches

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

Commit	Date	Change	Description
e317189	2026-08-11	correction	7 sections added; narrative text revised