Overview
This single-author study measured PAHs and five metals in six cooked meat and fish types bought in Calabar, Nigeria. It analyzed metals by flame AAS after wet digestion. Mercury was not detected in any sample. Metal levels were low, but the full metal results appear only in a bar chart.
Key numbers
- Lead: not detected in grilled pork and grilled catfish; 0.02 ± 0.00 mg/kg in the other four samples (Results, p. 228).
- Cadmium: grilled pork 0.03, fried pork 0.04, hotel and roadside grilled ram meat 0.03 mg/kg (p. 228).
- Aluminum 0.04 (grilled catfish) to 0.07 or 0.08 mg/kg (roadside ram meat); the text prints both values for the roadside sample (p. 228).
Methods (brief)
About 0.5 g of oven-dried sample was digested with nitric and perchloric acids and read by flame AAS. No detection limits, reference materials or recoveries are reported for metals. The number of replicates per metal value and the basis are not stated.
Evidence Fitness
Weak evidence: one sample set per food type, figure-only results for chromium and for some aluminum and cadmium values, and no metal QA. The text has internal conflicts. The Discussion says lead was found only in smoked fish while the Results give 0.02 mg/kg for four samples, and these values carry integrity flags. Cooked pork of unstated cut is a proxy for pork-and-beans-canned and pork-chop, so those pages are not linked.