Journal of food science and technology(Iran)

Journal of food science and technology(Iran)

Heavy Metals Release from Grilled Skewers and Disposable Aluminum Containers into Food

Document Type : Original Research

Author
Mohammad Nejatian
Assistant Professor of Food Science and Technology, Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
10.48311/fsct.2025.83935.0
Abstract
The intake of toxic metals from cooking utensils through food is of growing concern to the health  community. This intake poses serious risk to human health. In the present study, the migration of cadmium, lead, tin, iron, aluminum and chromium from steel and aluminum skewers as well as aluminum disposable containers to tomatoes, Koobideh, chicken kebab and rice investigated. According to the results, in the case of tomatoes, during the grilling, both migration and leaching of metals along with water took place, so that the migration was related to metals that were not naturally present in raw tomatoes (for example, tin concentration was increased upto 18 ppm). Generally, the migration of aluminum and iron were observed to be higher than the remaining minor elements in the aluminum and steel skewers, respectively, which is due to the higher concentration gradient of these metal ions in two types of skewers. The lowest level of migration occurs in grilled chicken. In this regard, no migration level of lead, cadmium and tin metals was observed in chickens from both types of skewers. It seems that the higher pH of chicken meat is related to this result. In the case of the aluminum foil cookware, the migration of only two metals, Al and Fe, to rice was significantly done, so that the amount of these metals increased by 2 and 2.8 times, respectively. THQ and HI values ​​were less than 1 in all examined foods (except for tin in grilled tomatoes), which shows that the migration of heavy metals to food from the examined cookwares is not a concern. Nevertheless, the present study emphasizes the necessity of establishing policies related to the materials and types of food cookware used in kitchens to protect consumers by minimizing the health risks associated with the migration of elements.

 
Keywords
Metal release
Cookware
food safety
inductivity coupled plasma (ICP)

Subjects

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