Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in commonly consumed Nigerian smoked/grilled fish and meat

Victoria Akpambang (1) , Giorgia Purcaro (2) , Labunmi Lajide (3) , Isiaka Amoo (4) , Lanfranco Conte (2) , Sabrina Moret (5)

1 Chemistry Department
2 Food Science
3 Chemistry Department
4 Chemistry Department
5 Food Science

Smoking and/or grilling, when carried out with traditional methods involving direct contact with wood combustion fumes, is responsible for high contamination levels with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The aim of this work was to investigate on PAH content of different smoked or grilled meat and fish products, commonly consumed in Nigeria. A rapid method involving microwave assisted saponification and simultaneous extraction followed by solid phase extraction (SPE), HPLC separation and spectrofluorometric detection, was applied for this purpose. Samples smoked or grilled using traditional systems, which made use of wood fire, were heavily contaminated with benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) levels ranging from 2.4 to 31.2 μg kg-1 wet weight. Considerably lower contamination levels were found in samples smoked or grilled in laboratory using charcoal fire (BaP from 0.7 to 2.8 μg kg-1 wet weight). The health risk associated to a daily consumption of 100 g of these products was also evaluated using the margin of exposure (MOE) approach. MOE values lower than 10,000 were obtained for all smoked/grilled commercial samples, indicating a potential concern for consumer health.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Victoria Akpambang, Giorgia Purcaro, Labunmi Lajide, Isiaka Amoo, Lanfranco Conte, et al.. Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in commonly consumed Nigerian smoked/grilled fish and meat. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2009, 26 (07), pp.1096-1103. ⟨10.1080/02652030902855406⟩. ⟨hal-00573864⟩