Determination of toxic elements in meat products from Serbia packaged in tinplate cans

Abstract

This work aimed to examine the in uence of the storage period on the content of toxic elements (As, Cd, Pb, and Hg), in ve types of canned meat products, which are regularly used in the Serbian Armed Forces. Cans of beef goulash (BG), pork ragout (PR), spam (SP), liver pate (LP), and meatballs in tomato sauce (MB), produced according to military standards, and stored under regular conditions (temperature up to max 25 °C and relative humidity up to max 75%), were analyzed in this research. Meat products were made according to the special military requirements, packed in tinplate cans, and stored for up to 6 years.The highest average contents of toxic elements were found to be 10.00 µg/kg for arsenic in BG, 35.91 µg/kg for cadmium in LP, 15.04 µg/kg for mercury in PR, and 8.00 µg/kg for lead in PR. The storage period did not signi cantly affect the level of toxic elements, although higher concentrations were found in samples stored for more than two years. The in uence of raw materials, spices, and additives on the level of toxic elements in some meat products was also examined. None of the samples contained toxic elements at levels exceeding the currently maximum permitted levels. The consumption of this type of food represents a small risk to human health because the exposure of soldiers to toxic elements, calculated as weekly intake, is far below legal PTWI/TWI limits, established by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Application of functional ingredients in canned meat production

“…Rosemary extract is rich in phenolic compounds, which causes its considerable antioxidant activity. Water-soluble rosemary extract effectively slows down lipid oxidation and prevents colour loss, demonstrating a decrease in the concentration of metmyoglobin and an increase in the values of oxymyoglobin during eight days of storage of irradiated ground beef (Stojanović et al, 2021;Kukhtyn et al, 2020). In restructured irradiated pork fillets, the combination of rosemary oleoresin with tocopherol effectively reduces the content of volatile hexanal, without having any effect on the generation of volatile sulphur compounds.…”