Woldegiorgis et al. 2015 - Ethiopian edible mushroom mineral and toxic-metal concentrations

Woldegiorgis and colleagues measured mineral and toxic-metal concentrations in 12 edible mushroom samples from Ethiopia. The source is routeable because it reports dry-weight concentrations for Pb and Cd, including non-detect Cd results, alongside Fe, Zn, Cu, and Mn. Cadmium was detected only in Agaricus campestris at 4.08 mg/kg dry weight; Pb was detected in all tabulated mushroom types, with species-level means from 1.52 to 18.0 mg/kg dry weight.

Key numbers

All mushroom concentrations below are mg/kg dry weight as reported in the paper.

• Cd and Pb by mushroom type: Pleurotus ostreatus Cd <0.028, Pb 5.45 +/- 1.09; Lentinus edodes Cd <0.028, Pb 1.52 +/- 0.73; Agaricus bisporus sample 1 Cd <0.028, Pb 18.0 +/- 0.11; Agaricus bisporus sample 2 Cd <0.028, Pb 11.7 +/- 0.73; Agaricus campestris Cd 4.08 +/- 0.38, Pb 8.68 +/- 1.95.
• Additional wild mushrooms: Laetiporus sulphureus Cd <0.028, Pb 3.40 +/- 0.88; Termitomyces clypeatus Cd <0.028, Pb 10.1 +/- 1.19; Termitomyces microcarpus sample 1 Cd <0.028, Pb 4.03 +/- 0.30; Termitomyces aurantiacus Cd <0.028, Pb 9.84 +/- 1.66; Termitomyces microcarpus sample 2 Cd <0.028, Pb 12.3 +/- 0.32; Termitomyces letestui Cd <0.028, Pb 17.2 +/- 1.51; Termitomyces sp. Cd <0.028, Pb 11.9 +/- 1.72.
• Minor minerals span wide dry-weight ranges: Fe 32.5-6835.9 mg/kg, Zn 26.6-87.6 mg/kg, Cu 5.69-45.9 mg/kg, and Mn 0.96-138.6 mg/kg across the mushroom set.
• The paper reports triplicate analytical measurements for the tabulated means and SDs; it does not provide individual mushroom-sample concentration rows.

Methods (brief)

Dried mushroom samples were analyzed for macro- and micro-minerals and anti-nutrients. The routeable toxic-metal table reports Cd and Pb on a dry-weight basis with the Cd detection limit shown as <0.028 mg/kg for most samples. The results are species/sample-group summaries rather than individual retail-lot measurements.

Implications

This source contributes Ethiopia-market and wild/cultivated edible mushroom data for lead and cadmium. The high Pb values, especially 18.0 mg/kg dry weight in one A. bisporus sample group and 17.2 mg/kg in T. letestui, should be treated as dry-basis mushroom occurrence and not mixed directly with fresh-basis datasets without conversion. The many Cd non-detects provide censoring information for most species, while A. campestris provides a positive Cd concentration.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• mushrooms
• lead
• cadmium
• iron
• zinc
• copper
• manganese

Verification notes

• DOI, title, authors, journal, and year were taken from the PDF article header and citation information.
• Cd values reported as “nd” are captured as below the paper’s stated detection limit of 0.028 mg/kg.
• Basis is dry weight. Downstream pooling must convert basis explicitly before combining with fresh mushroom or as-consumed values.
• The source is a food occurrence paper, not a soil-only paper, because edible mushroom concentrations are tabulated.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.