Impact of source, packaging and presence of food safety management system on heavy metals levels in spices and herbs.

Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science

Spices*/analysis ; Metals, Heavy*/analysis ; Food Contamination*/analysis ; Food Safety*; Lebanon ; Lead/analysis ; Cadmium/analysis ; Food Packaging ; Mercury/analysis ; Humans

Spices and herbs are susceptible to various contaminants, including heavy metals. Our study aimed to quantify the levels of lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), cadmium (As), and cadmium (Cd) in 96 composite samples of 13 herbs and spices frequently consumed in Lebanon. Twenty percent (19/96) and 4% (4/96) of the samples exceeded the permissible levels of Pb and Cd, respectively and all the samples met the permissible levels of As and Hg according to Codex Alimentarius standards. For Pb and Cd, unpackaged samples had the highest levels of unacceptable samples of 31% (8/26) and 8% (2/26), respectively. The samples locally packaged in companies with and without Food Safety Management System (FSMS) had the same levels of unacceptable samples of 12% (3/26) and 4% (1/26) for Pb and Cd, respectively. Imported packaged samples had unacceptable levels of Pb (28% (5/18)) and were acceptable for the three other heavy metals.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Moussa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

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0 (Metals, Heavy)
2P299V784P (Lead)
00BH33GNGH (Cadmium)
FXS1BY2PGL (Mercury)

Date Created: 20240823 Date Completed: 20240823 Latest Revision: 20240825

20240826

PMC11343411

10.1371/journal.pone.0307884

39178188