Although safety delays are established in the introduction
into
the market of the products derived from medicated animals, residues
of drugs and their metabolites may remain in the edible meat and reach
the food chain. In this context, the aim of this work is to evaluate
the effect of common domestic cooking procedures, such as boiling
(100 °C) and grilling (250 °C), on the fate of enrofloxacin
(ENR) residues and its metabolites, present in liver and muscle tissues
of chicken previously medicated with enrofloxacin. Although it is
generally accepted a thermal degradation for enrofloxacin when cooking,
a decrease in content, unaffected or even increased content is observed
depending on the considered metabolite. This latter observation can
be the result of either the actual thermal degradation of a structurally
close precursor or an artifact resulting from the thermal modification
of the matrix (muscle or liver). Nevertheless, it is clear that their
global content is considerably low with respect to the remaining content
of the administered ENR.