Chromium in basic foods of the Spanish diet: seafood, cereals, vegetables,olive oils and dairy products

In the present study, graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAA S) was used to determine the content of total chromium in some basic foods of the Spanish diet. The seafood samples, vegetables and olive oils were mi neralized previously with HNO3 and V2O5. A procedure of slurries with Trito n X-100 was applied to dairy products. The temperature-time program was opt imized for every type of sample. An assessment of the analytical characteri stics of the method verifies their reliability. The content of Cr ranged be tween 0.004 and 0.079 mug/g in seafood (fresh wt.), from 0.007 to 0.456 mug /g in cereals and vegetables (fresh wt.), between not detectable and 0.625 mug/g in dairy products and between not detectable and 0.040 mug/g in olive oils. The high consumption of these products conditions the fact that they should be significant sources of Cr in the diet. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.