Overview
Mercan Yucel measured aflatoxins and heavy metals in 60 unpackaged spice samples sold in Van province, Turkey: 20 red pepper, 20 black pepper, and 20 cumin samples. The source provides direct occurrence evidence for nickel, total arsenic, cadmium, lead, and aluminum in these spice categories, with ICP-MS used for the metal measurements.
Key numbers
- The sample set was 60 unpackaged spices: red pepper n=20, black pepper n=20, and cumin n=20.
- Table 2 reports black pepper mean +/- SD concentrations of Ni 5.08 +/- 1.28 ppm, Cd 0.35 +/- 0.48 ppm, Pb 2.47 +/- 3.51 ppm, and Al 392.45 +/- 247.4 ppm. Arsenic was not detected in black pepper.
- Cumin mean +/- SD concentrations were Ni 9.12 +/- 6.01 ppm, As 0.06 +/- 0.05 ppm, Cd 0.20 +/- 0.26 ppm, Pb 1.40 +/- 1.86 ppm, and Al 514.4 +/- 537.9 ppm.
- Red pepper mean +/- SD concentrations were Ni 8.95 +/- 4.51 ppm, Cd 0.06 +/- 0.01 ppm, Pb 0.11 +/- 0.05 ppm, and Al 33.75 +/- 10.01 ppm. Arsenic was not detected in red pepper.
- The authors compared results with WHO/FAO maximum permissible limits of Ni 1.63 ppm, As 1.0 ppm, Cd 0.2 ppm, and Pb 5.0 ppm. They state that Cd in black pepper and Ni in all three spice groups exceeded those limits.
- Table 5 reports THQ values below 1 for all metals and all spice groups: total HI was 0.168 for black pepper, 0.200 for cumin, and 0.096 for red pepper.
- For aflatoxins, AFB1 was detected in all red pepper samples and in one black pepper sample; AFB1 in red pepper ranged 0.286-37.491 ppb with mean 14.2 +/- 8.4 ppb.
Methods (brief)
Samples were collected from herbal shops and local markets in Van province. Heavy metals were measured by ICP-MS after wet digestion of dried samples using nitric acid and perchloric acid. Aflatoxins were measured by HPLC after immunoaffinity-column cleanup. For arsenic risk calculations, the author used 3% of total arsenic as the inorganic fraction, but the occurrence measurement itself is reported as arsenic without speciation.
Implications
Certification: This source contributes Turkey-market occurrence evidence for the spices row, especially Ni and Cd in black pepper and Ni in cumin and red pepper. It should not be used as inorganic-arsenic evidence because the measured analyte is total arsenic.
Courses: The paper is useful for teaching the difference between occurrence exceedances against food limits and THQ/HI risk calculations, since the same samples exceeded some maximum-permissible limits while THQ values remained below 1.
App: Route as unpackaged spice evidence from Turkey, with black pepper and cumin ingredient tags. Red pepper is included as a matrix label pending a matching ingredient page.
Wiki pages this source may touch
Verification notes
- The PDF prints both English and Turkish abstracts; the English title and DOI are used here.
- Arsenic is reported as As by ICP-MS and is treated here as total arsenic. The paper’s risk calculation assumes 3% inorganic arsenic, but the source does not measure inorganic arsenic directly.
- Red pepper is a real sampled matrix in the paper, but only existing ingredient slugs were used in frontmatter.
- The source itself reports two slightly different red-pepper AFB1 means: Table 1 gives 13.81 +/- 8.9 ppb, while the discussion narrative on the same paper reports 14.2 +/- 8.4 ppb over the same 0.286-37.491 ppb range. The wiki page cites the discussion value; the gap is internal to the paper, not a wiki extraction error.
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.