Heavy metals load in chicken meat and its reduction by probiotic strains

Around the world, poultry meat is a staple of everyday meals. However, chicken flesh is not always as healthy as it looks since it becomes contaminated by pollutants from the environment, especially heavy metals, which can bioaccumulate and magnify, and endanger human health.

The current investigation set out to evaluate the degree of contamination in a subset of chicken samples and the potential risks to human health associated with the ingestion of chicken meat.

Using atomic absorption spectroscopy, the heavy metal (lead, cadmium, and copper) contents of chicken samples were evaluated. To assess the residual content, 100 samples of chicken meat, 25 of each from the breast, thigh, gizzard, and liver were randomly selected from chicken butchers in Kafr El-Sheikh and El-Gharbia governorate in Egypt.

Lead had mean values of 0.27 ± 0.01, 0.34 ± 0.01, 0.55 ± 0.01, and 0.61 ± 0.02 (mg/kg ww), in the examined breast, thigh, gizzards, and liver, respectively. Cadmium, on the other hand, had mean levels (mg/kg ww) of 0.09 ± 0.01, 0.12 ± 0.01, 0.18 ± 0.01, and 0.25 ± 0.01 in the same samples, respectively. The copper residues had mean values (mg/kg ww) of 1.53 ± 0.14, 1.69 ± 0.16, 2.05 ± 0.17, and 2.71 ± 0.22, in the same samples, respectively.

Further government efforts are required to reduce environmental pollution and enhance the quality of the El-Gharbia governorate to prevent the accumulation of heavy metals, even though the majority of the samples that were examined fell within the acceptable limits established by the Egyptian Organization for Standardization and Quality Control.