Some toxic and essential trace metals in swine from northern Poland

The concentrations of mercury, cadmium, lead, copper, manganese, zinc and iron have been determined in muscle (meat), liver and kidneys of swine slaughtered in the northern part of Poland between 1987 and 1991. The method of measurement was cold vapour flameless AAS for mercury and flame AAS for other trace metals. The concentrations of such toxic metals as mercury, lead and cadmium were relatively low or very low. The arithmetic mean weighted concentrations obtained related to fresh weight for muscle, liver and kidneys of swine were 1.9, 3.7 and 7.0 micrograms kg-1 for mercury, 5, 41 and 240 micrograms kg-1 for cadmium, 20, 94 and 120 micrograms kg-1 for lead, 1.1, 8.5 and 8.4 mg kg-1 for copper, 0.11, 1.3 and 1.3 mg kg-1 for manganese, 26, 50 and 30 mg kg-1 for zinc and 13, 54 and 63 mg kg-1 for iron, respectively. No definite time trends of mercury, cadmium and lead concentrations in swine muscle and edible organ meats during the period studied were observed, while for an essential trace metals analysed the values obtained seem to be typical. The results noted are reviewed and discussed with the data reported for muscle, liver and kidneys of swine in Poland from other studies.