Overview
Rashid and colleagues measured arsenic and nine other elements by ICP-MS in two cultivated oyster mushroom species grown on rice straw at two Bangladeshi farms in 2014, and in five market mushroom powders. All results are on a dry-weight basis. Arsenic was higher at the Savar site near highways and brick kilns, while cadmium was higher at the rural Gazipur farm.
Key numbers
- Pleurotus high-king (n=40): arsenic 0.56 ± 0.25 mg/kg dw (range 0.18 to 0.91), lead 0.40 ± 0.39 mg/kg (0.08 to 1.37), cadmium 0.35 ± 0.17 mg/kg (Table 1).
- Pleurotus ostreatus (n=40): arsenic 0.45 ± 0.11, cadmium 0.41 ± 0.10, mercury 0.124 ± 0.03 mg/kg dw (Table 1).
- Market mushroom powders (n=5): arsenic 0.15 to 0.36, lead 0.15 to 0.61, chromium 0.17 to 2.4 mg/kg (Section 3.11).
Methods (brief)
Fruiting bodies were washed, air-dried and oven-dried at 60 °C, microwave-digested in nitric acid and read by ICP-MS; arsenic species by HPLC-ICP-MS. NIST SRM 1573a recoveries 88.4 to 113%. Detection limits are not reported.
Evidence Fitness
Good grower-level data for two oyster mushroom species with reference-material QA, but from only two farms and a five-sample market basket. Inorganic arsenic made up 38 to 72% of total arsenic in nine speciated samples, without per-sample values. The study measures whole mushrooms, not soup; it is a proxy for cream-of-mushroom-soup and does not support that page directly.