Abstract
The analysis of food salt is very important because of its high consumption by the population, for both medicinal and nutritional use. In this study, nine different samples of food salt (Cyprus black, Himalayan pink, Hawaii red, iodized, hyposodic iodized, Maldon smoked sea, common sea, Breton sea and Persia blue), coming from large Italian retailers and employed by people for different cooking food purposes, were investigated through High Purity Germanium (HPGe) Gamma Spectrometry in order to evaluate the anthropogenic (137Cs) and natural (40K) radioisotopes activity concentration, and used Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) in order to assess any possible metals contamination by a comparison between Cu, As, Cd, Hg and Pb concentrations and the limits set by the Italian Legislation. The evaluation of dose levels due to the salt ingestion for the age category higher than 17 years was performed taking into account the human body daily need of about 10 g of salt, and in the precautionary hypothesis, this need was satisfied from a single type of salt. All obtained results are under allowable levels (1 mSv/year), thus excluding the risk of ionizing radiation effects on humans. Regarding to the metals concentration, experimental results show that it is lower than the contamination threshold values, thus excluding their presence as pollutants.
Highlights
Human beings are subjected to radiations coming from natural and artificial sources in their living environments [1]
The highest value of 40K activity concentration refers to hyposodic iodized salt, which is characterized by a low sodium and a high potassium chloride, potassium citrate and potassium iodate total content (31.3%)
The highest value of 40 K activity concentration refers to hyposodic iodized salt, which is characterized by a low sodium and a high potassium chloride, potassium citrate and potassium iodate total content (31.3%)
Summary
Human beings are subjected to radiations coming from natural and artificial sources in their living environments [1]. There are three ways of exposure to ionizing radiations for humans: external gamma rays, inhalation of radon and other radioactive nuclides and ingestion of radioisotopes through food and water [5] For the latter, in particular, the natural radioactivity in food comes mainly from 40 K; uranium and thorium daughter products are usually present in traces [6,7,8]. Salt is one of the most important compound in the life of organisms as it is necessary offor humans, animals and plants; due to its importance for large cells of the body and metabolism in the cell, it is for a necessity survival It can from be extracted from themines sea and from and, withit its necessity survival.
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