HEAVY METALS CONTENT AND BACTERIAL LOAD OF SOME SPICES IMPORTED FROM VARIOUS ORIGINS

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

1 National Nutrition Institute (NNI), Garden City, Cairo, Egypt

2 Fac. Agric., Ain Shams Univ

3 Institute of Environmental Studies & Researches,Ain Shams Univ.

Abstract

The use of spices and other herbs has increased markedly in most regions of the world, including Europe and North America. Heavy metals have bio-importance as trace elements but the biotoxic effects of many of them in human biochemistry are of great concern. Spices can easily be contaminated by heavy metals from type of soil for cultivation,fertilizers and source of water used for irrigation.The effect of cultivation origin (importation area ; ¡.e American and /or Asian origins)was studied to determine the heavy metals content in addition to bacterial load of four imported spices( nutmeg, cinnamon, black  pepper and allspice ) avilabale in Egyptian market. Moisture content did not affect according to its origin ranged between (9.96 to 11.36%) in case of nutmeg. Regarding to cinnamon spice, moisture content possess no difference when it determined in either China or Mexico origin.Similar pattern was detected in case of Sri Lanka as well as India (from Asia) and Brazil (from America).When allspice was considered,only that imported from India did not significantly differed with corresponding one that imported from Mexico.In the  same time (USA)sample was completely differed than that of other investigated samples.Regarding to the protein content of different investigated spices , there is no significant difference owing to its origin in case of nutmeg spice. Both of Asian cinnamon as well as allspice spices had no significant as affected by origin country. Similar finding was noticed in case of American black pepper. Concerning the fat content of various imported spices  significant differences were detected between samples except of American imported cinnamon.The highest fat content was found in nutmeg either Asian or American ones. The origin country did not significantly affect the ash content in case of cinnamon and/or allspice .Generally, ash content was around( 3-5%) in different investigated samples. Approximately, it could be seen that Asian spices had higher ash content rather than that of American ones (except of nutmeg from USA). Fiber content of nutmeg did not significantly affect by origin country. The(Fe) metal was came in the first order ; i.e. the predominant one in all of Asian spices except in imported cinnamon, black pepper and allspice from  Sri Lanka and China which had (Mn) as a predominant metal . Nutmeg imported from Sri Lanka contains higher level of (Cu) metal that came in the first order followed by its (Fe) level (3.220 ppm).Three of heavy metals were not detected in Asian spices (As,Ti and Li).Concerning the total heavy metals content in different investigated Asian spices,the highest heavy metals content was found in nutmeg that imported from Sri Lanka ,while the lowest one  was detected in Chinese allspice the  similar findings that shown earlier. The Indian black pepper showed the highest TBC content, also Chinese as well as Sri lankian black pepper had a similar high content. Regarding the spices importation origin (American countries), Mexican allspice had the highest TBC. The lowest TBC was detected in case of nutmeg imported from USA.   
 

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