Overview
Rostek measured lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, iron and manganese in canned pork and beef and in meat pies (pork pâté) from five Polish meat processing factories, bought in Lublin shops in spring 2007. Lead and cadmium were measured by graphite furnace atomic absorption, the other elements by flame atomic absorption, on a fresh-weight basis. Meat pies, which contain liver and kidney, carried more cadmium than canned meat.
Key numbers
- Canned pork and beef: lead 0.017 ± 0.008 to 0.079 ± 0.012 mg/kg; cadmium 0.025 ± 0.010 to 0.062 ± 0.012 mg/kg fresh substance across five factories (Table 3, p. 20).
- Meat pies: lead 0.021 ± 0.008 to 0.068 ± 0.010 mg/kg; cadmium 0.026 ± 0.009 to 0.106 ± 0.018 mg/kg, the highest just above the Polish 0.1 mg/kg limit for products with liver and kidney (Table 3, p. 20).
- Iron in meat pies reached 38.66 ± 6.13 mg/kg (Table 2, p. 20).
Methods (brief)
One gram samples dry-ashed at 550 °C and dissolved in hydrochloric acid; AA-880 spectrophotometer. Results are means ± SD in mg/kg fresh substance. No detection limits, reference materials, recoveries or sample counts are reported. The DOI is not printed in the PDF.
Evidence Fitness
Small, single-city retail survey with unstated sample numbers and no QA, so values are indicative only. It is a canned and processed meat proxy for turkey-luncheon-meat, vegetable-beef-soup and brown-gravy; none of those foods is measured, so those pages are not linked. The text gives two different Polish lead limits and a meat-pie cadmium range that does not match Table 3; table values were used.