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Trace nutrients. Selenium in British food

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Government chemists measured selenium in UK total diet food groups collected in early 1974 and in a range of individual foods. They estimated the average British diet supplied about 60 µg of selenium per day, half from cereals and about 40% from meat and fish. Bread-making and wholemeal flours, kidney, fatty fish and especially Brazil nuts were rich in selenium, while milk, fats, fruit and vegetables supplied little.

Key numbers

  • Estimated average UK selenium intake: about 60 µg per person per day; cereals 30 µg, meat and fish 22 µg (Table 1, p. 393).
  • Total diet group means: cereals 0.11 mg/kg (0.03 to 0.23), fish 0.32 mg/kg (0.28 to 0.38), milk 0.01 mg/kg, root vegetables and fruit below 0.01 mg/kg (Table 1, p. 393).
  • Individual foods: bread-making flour 0.42 mg/kg, wholemeal flour 0.53 mg/kg, plain and self-raising flour 0.04 mg/kg; pig kidney 2.16 to 2.81 mg/kg; herring 0.45 and 0.76 mg/kg; cod 0.10 mg/kg; egg yolk 0.20 mg/kg; milk below 0.01 mg/kg (Table 2, p. 394).
  • Brazil nuts, eight separate samples: 2.3, 4, 9.5, 16, 17, 33, 42 and 53 mg/kg (Table 2, p. 394).
  • Human milk 0.01 to 0.02 mg/kg; dried infant milk 0.08 mg/kg (Table 2, p. 394).
  • Reference material: bovine liver results 1.0 to 1.4 mg/kg against a certified 1.1 mg/kg (Methods, p. 392).

Methods (brief)

Six colleges bought and cooked about 80 foods for the government total diet study, combined into eight groups. Individual raw foods were bought in London. Samples were acid-digested and selenium measured fluorimetrically as a 2,3-diaminonaphthalene complex.

Evidence fitness

Supports historical (1974) UK intake and the relative ranking of selenium-rich foods, including the very wide range in Brazil nuts. The values are dated, sample numbers for individual foods are mostly one, and origins were unknown.

Limitations

Mostly single samples of individual foods; origin unrecorded; non-detects set to 0.005 mg/kg in group means; the fluorimetric method predates modern ICP-MS. Classified here as a government report because authors were at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, though published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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