ABSTRACT
The present study assessed metallic contaminants levels in food colourings using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) in 51 samples of food dyes marketed in Algeria. The analysed samples were contaminated with lead (0.77 ± 0.034), arsenic (0.008 ± 0.006), cadmium (0.102 ± 0.047), cobalt (0.017 ± 0.008), copper (0.025 ± 0.011), chromium (0.820 ± 0.051), and nickel (0.022 ± 0.009) µg g−1. Mercury constituted a minor contaminant (<0.001 to 0.002 µg g−1). Turmeric and saffron were the most contaminated with Pb, As, Cd, Co, Cu, Cr, and Ni (p < 0.05). Health risk assessment revealed that infant population presents adverse non-carcinogenic effects (THQ = 4.25) and carcinogenic risk (HI = 4.65) linked to the consumption of food dyes contaminated with Cr.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Credit author statement
HAM Sanaa and HAMADI Karima: Resources, Investigation; ZERGUI Anissa: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Data Curation, Visualisation, Writing – Original Draft; DJOUAD Mokhtar Eddine: Supervision. All authors discussed the review topic and contents and contributed to the final manuscript.
Data availability statement
The data collected and analysed for this study can be shared upon request.