Heavy Metals in Food: Contamination Pathways, Toxicological Risk, Testing, and Control
Heavy Metals in Food: Contamination Pathways, Toxicological Risk, Testing, and Control Heavy metals in food are among the most serious chemical food safety concerns because they cannot be destroyed by cooking, washing, freezing, drying, or ordinary food processing. Once these contaminants enter the food chain, control depends mainly on prevention at source, careful raw material selection, validated testing, and regulatory action. In food safety language, the term “heavy metals” is often used for toxic elements and metalloids such as lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and tin. These substances may enter food through natural geology, polluted soil, contaminated irrigation water, industrial emissions, mining, fertilizers, pesticides, contaminated animal feed, processing equipment, food contact materials, packaging migration, and environmental deposition. The infographic source used for this blog also highlights these same entry routes and risk control points. According to WHO, heavy ...