Overview
Mrázková and colleagues prepared four cereal-based mixtures (600 g flakes and 400 g dried flowers, fruits and nuts per kilogram) and measured 31 elements by ICP-MS, then modelled intakes from a 50 g portion. Lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury were all in the low tens of nanograms per gram dry weight, below EU cereal limits.
Key numbers
- Lead 12.6 ± 0.2 to 31.6 ± 0.4 ng/g dry weight; the gluten-free mixtures (M3, M4) were highest (Table 2, p. 8).
- Cadmium 11.1 ± 0.10 to 15.5 ± 0.10 ng/g; total arsenic 14.2 ± 0.5 to 31.5 ± 1.2 ng/g; mercury 14.3 ± 0.1 to 17.6 ± 0.5 ng/g (Table 2, p. 8).
- Aluminium 5.41 ± 0.10 to 12.1 ± 0.1 µg/g; nickel 206 ± 2 to 434 ± 5 ng/g (Table 2, p. 8).
Methods (brief)
Microwave digestion with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide; ICP-MS (iCAP Qc) with helium collision cell. CRMs NIST 1568b rice flour and IAEA lichen and tea leaves gave 96.2 to 104% recovery. Results are means ± SD of nine measurements on a dry-weight basis.
Evidence Fitness
Each mixture is a single laboratory formulation, so n = 9 reflects analytical replication, not product variation. These are experimental muesli-type mixtures, not retail breakfast cereal or infant cereal, so they are a generic cereal-product proxy for the cereal and infant-oat-cereal pages, which are not linked. Oat flakes are only one ingredient.