Concentrations and Hazards of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Hawked Baked Ready-to-Eat Foods in Nigeria

Abstract

The total concentrations of the Ʃ16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were examined in some samples of baked ready-to-eat foods (cake, sausage roll, meat pie, burger, and bread) with a view to provide information on the hazards associated with the consumption of these hawked street foods. The measurements were performed by using a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) after hexane/dichloromethane extraction and clean-up. The total concentrations of the PAHs in these samples of ready-to-eat baked foods ranged from 427.4 to 1224 μg kg–1, 289.9 to 853.7 μg kg–1, 574.4 to 2333 μg kg–1, 364.6 to 2906 μg kg–1, and 15.7 to 213.1 μg kg–1 for cake, sausage roll, meat pie, burger, and bread, respectively. The results indicated that these baked ready-to-eat foods were mainly contaminated with 2-, 3-, and 4-ring PAHs. The concentrations of benzo(a)pyrene were less than 0.1 μg kg–1 in nineteen out of the twenty samples examined.