Overview
Osmala-Kurpiewska and colleagues measured cadmium and lead by graphite-furnace AAS in 114 peeled carrots, parsley roots and potatoes from shops and home gardens in the industrial Silesian Province, harvested in autumn 2025. Cadmium exceeded the EU limit in 35 samples and lead in five. Home-grown and shop-bought vegetables did not differ significantly.
Key numbers
- Carrot (n = 71): cadmium mean 0.146 ± 0.158 mg/kg fresh weight, maximum 0.617 mg/kg (Table 3, p. 223; mean confirmed in Discussion).
- Potato (n = 28): cadmium mean 0.073 ± 0.064 mg/kg, maximum 0.351 mg/kg; lead maximum 0.064 mg/kg (Table 3, p. 223).
- Parsley root (n = 15): lead maximum 0.153 mg/kg fresh weight, the highest lead value (Table 3, p. 223).
Methods (brief)
Vegetables were washed, peeled and grated as for eating, microwave-digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide and analysed by ET-AAS. LOQs were 0.005 mg/kg for cadmium and 0.05 mg/kg for lead; recoveries 90 to 107% and 81 to 109%. Lead was below the LOQ in 107 of 114 samples.
Evidence Fitness
Recent, fresh-weight data with stated LOQs, but no named reference material, and only results above the LOQ were used for statistics, which inflates lead means. The printed tables drop the leading “0.” from many cells; values were read with the Discussion text, and the potato lead mean (0.008 mg/kg) sits below the lead LOQ. Raw peeled potatoes and roots are proxies for cream-of-potato-soup and root-vegetable-purees, so those pages are not linked.