Toxic Metals and Essential Nutrients Concentration in Different Vegetables Collected from Market Sites of Chittagong Metropolitan City, Bangladesh

Vegetables are vital sources of minerals, vitamins, dietary fibers, antioxidants, protein and carbohydrate1,2.Whereas, both essential and lethal elements (metals) are present in vegetables. abstract The current research has been conducted to investigate concentrationsof some toxic metals such as Mn,Cr,Pb,Cd, Cu,and Co along with essential nutrients K,Ca,Mg,Fe and Zn in twenty two different types of vegetables collected from wholesale market of Chittagong Metropolitan city, Bangladesh. Toxic metals and essential nutrients concentration in the vegetables were determined using Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS) after acid digestion. Percentages of moisture, organic and inorganic matter of these vegetables were also determined. Metals concentration was measured by AAS after wet digestion system. The result of this study showed that the average concentration detected for toxic metals ranged from 0.11-2.49, 0.04-4.45, 0.05-1.59, 0.04-5.19, 0.01-0.09, and 0.001-0.35 mg/kg for Cu, Mn, Cr, Pb, Cd and Co respectively. Essential nutrientsranged from 572.64-8915.40, 4.99242.56, 81.39-4797.63, 0.09-14.67, and 0.13-9.36 mg/kg for K,Ca,Mg,Fe and Zn respectively and percentage of moisture, organic and inorganic matter ranged from 68.35-95.43, 4.46-30.28 and 0.12-3.94 respectively. These values are within the tolerable limits except for Mn, Cr and Pb that have values which are higher than the FAO/WHO recommended values. The main objective of the present work is to focus on contamination of toxic metals in different vegetables in order to assure a significant improvement in food safety.