Elemental composition of commercial sea cucumbers (holothurians)

Abstract

Toxic and essential elements in 11 different sea cucumber species were determined and compared with daily intake recommendations and maximum allowed levels. The contents of macro-elements contents in dried sea cucumber samples were found to be 25,000–152,000 mg kg^–1 for Na, 4000–8600 mg kg⁻¹ for Mg, 1100–5200 mg kg⁻¹ for K, 15,000–68,000 mg kg⁻¹ and 36,300–251,000 mg kg⁻¹ for Cl. Trace element concentrations in dried sea cucumber samples were found to be 11–100 mg kg⁻¹ for Zn, 41–660 mg kg⁻¹ for Fe, 3–74 mg kg⁻¹ for Cu, 1.1–16 mg kg⁻¹ for Mn, 1.4–3.7 mg kg⁻¹ for Se, 1.1–9.6 mg kg⁻¹ for Cr, and 0.3–5.1 mg kg⁻¹ for Ni. All sea cucumber species were rich sources of Na, Cl, Mg, Ca, Fe, Cu, Se and Cr for human consumption. Regarding contaminants, As, Cd and Pb concentrations in dried sea cucumbers were in the ranges of 1.1–6.1, 0.03–0.06 and 0.11–0.69 mg kg⁻¹, respectively. Moreover, Hg values of 11 sea cucumbers were below the detection limit (0.01 mg kg⁻¹).

Keywords:

• animal products
• meat
• metals

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Technologies R&D Program (Grant Number 2009BAB44B02); the Science and Technology Program of Guangdong Province (Grant Numbers 2009B091300155, 2007A020300007-15 and A200899E02, A200901E01) and Guangxi Province (Grant Number 0815006-2).