Evaluation of some food additives and heavy metals in Egyptian meat products

Research Article

International Journal of One Health, 6(1): 61-68

https://doi.org/10.14202/IJOH.2020.61-68

Mohamed Abdelfattah Maky¹, Mohamed A. A. Abd-ElRasoul², and Mohammed Salah³

1. Department of Food Hygiene and Control, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, South Valley University, 83522, Qena, Egypt.
2. Central Laboratory, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
3. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, South Valley University, 83522, Qena, Egypt.

Background and Aim: Contamination of processed meat by chemicals, either by their addition for enhancing the product quality or as a result of contamination during the manufacturing process, is a crucial food safety issue that threatens human health. This research was conducted to estimate the contamination levels by harmful chemical contaminants, including nitrite, lead, cadmium, and phosphate in the Egyptian processed meats.

Materials and Methods: In our study, 20 samples of each frozen sausage, pastirma, and luncheon were collected and prepared for the detection of chemical contaminants, including nitrite, lead, cadmium, phosphorus, and phosphate.

Results: Pastirma showed the highest nitrite and lead levels (163.65±22.633 and 0.805±0.173 ppm) and the lowest levels in phosphorus and phosphate (2.294±0.19 and 9.084±0.755 g/kg) whereas sausage recorded the highest concentration of cadmium (0.073±0.008 ppm), phosphorus and phosphate (13.268±1.129 and 52.54±4.472 g/kg, respectively). However, the estimation of nitrite, lead, cadmium, and phosphate levels in sausage, pastirma, and luncheon was considered within the acceptable daily intake. Moreover, target hazard quotient and hazard index of all analyzed chemical contaminants in different processed meat were below one, indicating the safety of these meat products without any danger to human health. The probability of developing cancer was measured using carcinogenic risk (CR) where pastirma and luncheon recorded satisfactory levels away from developing cancer because of lead (4.59E-04 and 1.87E-04, respectively) and cadmium (7.60E-04 and 3.80E-04, respectively) contamination. Surprisingly, the cadmium level in sausage samples represented a relevant CR for consumers (1.90E-03).

Conclusion: Periodical surveillance of meat chemical contaminants is a vital issue for human health maintenance. Keywords: carcinogenic risk, chemical contaminants, hazard index, meat products, target hazard quotient.

Keywords: carcinogenic risk, chemical contaminants, hazard index, meat products, target hazard quotient.

How to cite this article: Maky MA, Abd-ElRasoul MAA, Salah M (2020) Evaluation of some food additives and heavy metals in Egyptian meat products, Int. J. One Health, 6(1): 61-68.

Received: 13-01-2020 Accepted: 15-04-2020 Published online: 09-06-2020

Corresponding author: Mohammed Salah E-mail: salah-bio@vet.svu.edu.eg

DOI: 10.14202/IJOH.2020.61-68

Copyright: Maky, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.