Heavy Metal Leaching in Foods Cooked with Stainless-steel Pots and Locally made Alloy Pots

Heavy metals are widely distributed across the earth crust but are present in very low concentrations in the human body. An increased concentration (above safe levels) in the human body can lead to several deleterious health issues such as chronic degenerative changes to organs, teratogenic and carcinogenic effects, lipid peroxidation and DNA damage. An increased concentration can be as a result of ingestion of foods contaminated by heavy metals. The aim of this work is to determine the safeness of stainless-steel pots and alloy pots from heavy metal leaching while also comparing leached heavy metals in food samples cooked with the two commonly used pots in Nigeria. Five food samples were used in this research and were prepared using local procedures. Atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS) was used to determine the concentration of manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), chromium (Cr) and cadmium (Cd) in the food samples. Generally, our results suggest that both pots are averagely safe but continuous usage of these pots could pose some health challenge especially for the stainless-steel pot that consistently leached higher concentration of the analyzed heavy metals. These metals, though in low concentrations, have the potential to bioaccumulate in the body without severe side-effects. High bioavailability and subsequent accumulation of these metals in the body can negatively affect the human health.