Health Risk Assessment Of Cd, Cr And Pb Levels In Artificial Colours, Foods And Drinks Consumed In Jalingo, Taraba State
Ugwu, I. C.
Department of Biological Sciences, Federal University Wukari, P.M.B. 1020, Katsina-Ala Road, Wukari Taraba State
Jeyol, M. C
Department of Biological Sciences, Federal University Wukari, P.M.B. 1020, Katsina-Ala Road, Wukari Taraba State
Keywords: Artificial Colours, Cadmium, Chromium, Estimated Daily Intake, Health Index, Lead, Street-vended foods, Target Hazard Quotient
Abstract
Street-vended foods are classified as those foods cooked, prepared and served by vendors in streets and/or other public places and are directly consumed without further preparation. Although street foods offer a great deal of advantages to food security, concerns about their health risk effects on humans are far too great to be ignored. Triplicate samples of four food colours namely Yellow, Orange, Red and White; four cooked foods – jellof rice, Okpa, moi-moi and Spaghetti and local drinks colours Yellow, Orange, White and Caramel were randomly collected from the surroundings of the Jalingo Main Market where food vendors hawked, and was taken to the Central laboratory of the Federal University Wukari for analysis. Cd, Cr and Pb levels was determined using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry to evaluate the concentrations in each of the samples and to predict the potential health risk on the exposed population using the estimated daily intake (EDI), target hazard quotient (THQ) and health index (HI). Results reveal that Pb was above the WHO/FAO (2016) permissible limit in the artificial colours and cooked food only and below in local drinks, except for Colour Caramel in local drinks and Okpa or Moi-moi. Cd and Cr was generally below in cooked food, artificial colours and local drinks. The high levels of Pb reflect the handling, storage, processing, cooking and preparation of the Bambara nut pudding and spaghetti, local drinks yellow, orange and red colours. The EDI was less than one for all samples, THQ was greater one in cooked foods and local drinks but higher for Pb in artificial colours. The HI for Cd, Cr and Pb recorded very high values reflecting synergistic health risk effects of more than one contaminants on the exposed population.