Overview
Rusin and colleagues analyzed 200 wild edible mushrooms of 10 species collected in autumn 2024 from two non-industrial counties and two counties near a zinc smelter and a zinc-lead mining and metallurgy plant in southern Poland. Results are in fresh mass. Cadmium was the dominant problem: Xerocomellus (red-cracking and yellow-cracking bolete) from industrial areas had a median cadmium of 3.53 mg/kg, about seven times the EU limit, and 102 of 200 samples exceeded an EU limit for cadmium, lead or mercury.
Key numbers
- Xerocomellus chrysenteron and X. subtomentosus, industrial sites (n=48): cadmium median 3.53 (IQR 1.53-4.56) mg/kg f.m., lead median 0.63 (0.40-0.95) mg/kg (Table 4).
- Same species, non-industrial sites (n=10): cadmium median 0.47 (0.20-0.86) mg/kg, lead 0.09 (0.09-0.10) mg/kg (Table 4).
- Suillus luteus and S. grevillei, industrial sites: cadmium mean 0.17 ± 0.08 mg/kg, lead mean 0.34 ± 0.28 mg/kg, max 1.88 mg/kg (Table 2).
- Boletus edulis, Wadowice County (n=5): total mercury median 0.481 (0.332-0.538) mg/kg f.m. (Table 5).
Methods (brief)
Whole fruiting bodies were cleaned, frozen, blended and digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide in a microwave system. Cadmium and lead were measured by graphite furnace AAS, total mercury by cold-vapor atomic fluorescence and zinc by ICP-OES, in duplicate. LOQs were 0.01 (cadmium), 0.10 (lead), 0.001 (mercury) and 0.69 (zinc) mg/kg. Calibration used certified standard solutions; no matrix reference material or recovery is reported.
Evidence Fitness
A sizeable, dated field survey with clear site stratification and fresh-mass results, but no matrix reference material. Several lead medians are printed as 0.09 mg/kg, below the stated lead LOQ, so censored values were apparently substituted. Table 4 sample-count columns appear swapped relative to the text. These are raw foraged mushrooms, many from heavily contaminated mining areas; they are a proxy only for cream-of-mushroom-soup, which is not linked here, and they do not represent cultivated or retail mushrooms.