Overview
Silva and colleagues collected 265 samples of six vegetables from growing areas in Nuwara Eliya, Badulla and Kalpitiya between December 2018 and March 2020 and measured arsenic, cadmium, lead, copper and zinc by ICP-OES on a fresh-weight basis. All crop means were well below Codex limits, and estimated weekly intakes were far below tolerable intakes. Root crops from Badulla accumulated the most.
Key numbers
- Carrot: cadmium 0.015 ± 0.002 mg/kg (range 0.002 to .037) and lead “0.0345±0.003” mg/kg (range 0.01 to 0.111), fresh weight (Section 3.1; Abstract).
- Red onion: arsenic 0.009 ± 0.001 mg/kg (range 0.008 to 0.042) (Section 3.1; Abstract).
- Cabbage: lead 0.0124 ± 0.001 mg/kg, the lowest crop mean (Section 3.1).
Methods (brief)
Washed (root crops scrubbed and peeled), oven dried at 60 °C, microwave digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide, and analysed by ICP-OES; results converted to fresh weight using measured moisture. Tomato leaves reference material gave recoveries of 82 to 90%; detection limits are not reported.
Evidence Fitness
A sizeable field survey with fresh-weight results, but many crop and location values appear only in figures, the printed cabbage arsenic range has its bounds reversed, and Table 1 counts sum to 247 rather than 265. The printed issue year is 2025 although acceptance was February 2026. Field samples, not retail. Individual vegetables are a proxy for vegetables-mixed: the paper does not measure a mixed-vegetable product, so it is not linked to that page.