Exposure assessment of methylmercury in samples of the BfR MEAL Study

Collection of occurrence data in foods – The value of the BfR MEAL study in addition to the national monitoring for dietary exposure assessment

“…Such stratifications, however, are not included systematically in the monitoring programme. In the BfR MEAL Study, the food list for the core module, which considers environmental contaminants and elements, consists of 356 foods ( Sarvan et al, 2021 ). These were screened for the expected variability regarding region, season or production type ( Sarvan et al, 2017 ), resulting in 153 foods with further analysis regarding the regions north, south, east, west, differentiation between import or national season and/or differentiation between organic and conventional production.…”

“…For the BfR MEAL Study, data from the National Consumption Survey II (NVS II) and the VELS Study were analysed to establish the food list ( Sarvan et al, 2021 ). Based on the mean long-term consumption, foods covering at least 90% of the diet were selected.…”

“…In total, 356 foods (approx. 900 pools) were included in the core food list ( Sarvan et al, 2021 ). When regarded as appropriate the BfR MEAL Study also applies substance-specific food lists to save resources (e.g.…”

“…The datasets are subject of an extensive internal quality control and will be released successively afterwards. First results have been published for iodine ( German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), 2021 ), cadmium and lead ( Ptok et al, 2020 ), methylmercury ( Sarvan, Kolbaum, Pabel, Buhrke, Greiner & Lindtner, 2021 ) and arsenic ( Hackethal, Kopp, Sarvan, Schwerdtle & Lindtner, 2021 ). With both programmes, the food monitoring and the TDS, risk assessment in Germany has the advantage of having two comprehensive data sources available.…”

Results of the BfR MEAL Study: The food type has a stronger impact on calcium, potassium and phosphorus levels than factors such as seasonality, regionality and type of production

“…Purchasing, preparation and homogenization of samples in order to represent German consumer behaviour were performed between 2017 and 2019 as described previously from our group ( Hackethal et al, 2021 , Sarvan et al, 2021 ). In total, 356 MEAL foods were analysed for Ca, K and P. If differences between regionally, seasonally and organically or conventionally produced MEAL foods were expected, foods were stratified accordingly.…”