Evaluation of metal impurities in foods preserved with sodium lactate.

The public is being bombarded by the media almost dailywith real and potential food health concerns leadingto a public sentiment that questions the vulnerability and quality of our food. Sodium lactate is a food-grade product that in recent years has been used in bioremediation to stimulate microbial growth and contaminant breakdown processes. In previous work, impurities including arsenic and chromium were discovered to be present in the sodium lactate concentrate. The study described in this article was performed to determine whether arsenic and chromium were at detectable levels, posing a potential concern in food products preserved with sodium lactate available to the general public. A pilot sampling of three sodium-lactate-preserved food products was obtained from a local market and used to determine the commercial laboratory's detection and reporting limits for arsenic and chromium for these food products. Once these limits were established, a random sampling and analyses of 17 food products was performed. Arsenic was not reported above the detection limits in either the pilot or subsequent study, but chromium was detected at concentrations up to 0.30 parts per million in a pilot test sample and lower concentrations in the subsequent study. This study suggests that the sodium lactate in the sampled products was diluted enough for the arsenic concentration to be below the laboratory detection limit. Chromium was detected and may be an unaccounted source of chromium in diets of vulnerable populations.