Overview
Pappuswamy and colleagues measured lead, cadmium and zinc by AAS in intestine, heart, liver, gizzard and blood of local chickens bought at markets in three Tamil Nadu districts. Despite the title, no muscle meat results are reported; the food matrices are offal. Lead means of about 2 to 6 mg/kg exceeded the 0.1 mg/kg limit the authors cite.
Key numbers
- Chicken liver, Coimbatore: lead 5.42 ± 5.06 mg/kg, cadmium 0.53 ± 0.48 mg/kg (Table 1).
- Chicken gizzard, Namakkal: lead 2.04 ± 4.19 mg/kg, cadmium 0.72 ± 0.56 mg/kg (Table 1).
- Chicken heart, Coimbatore: lead 6.42 ± 3.64 mg/kg (Table 1).
Methods (brief)
Organs were oven-dried at 106 °C, digested with nitric and perchloric acids and read by AAS. The basis is not stated in the tables. No sample numbers, collection dates, detection limits, reference materials or recoveries are reported.
Evidence Fitness
Low-confidence data. Sample sizes are not given, several standard deviations exceed their means, the Table 2 ranges do not contain the Table 1 district means, and “ND” is defined as “not done” in the footnote but read as “not found” in the text. Only offal was measured. For the thin pages it was pulled for (chicken broth, meat-and-poultry, turkey luncheon meat), this is a chicken offal proxy only.