ABSTRACT
In order to assess the safety of some fruits and vegetables, the metal concentration in fruits (banana and oranges) and vegetables (green leaf and pumpkin) obtained from Santana, Oba and Uselu markets were analyzed using the inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) which was compared with the standard set by World Health Organization/Food and Agriculture Organization (WHO/FAO). When compared with the standards,Cobalt and Thallium were found to be in the safe limit, while iron in banana and vegetables (green leaf and pumpkin)exceeded the permissible limit but was found within safe limits in oranges. The results were assessed by evaluating daily intake of metals(DIM), the hazard quotient(HQ) to determine the hazard indices(HI) in samples collected from each markets. Hazard quotients (HQ) for cobalt(0.00340, 0.01660, 0.01360 across the three(3) selected markets in green leaf, 0.00090, 0.00090, 0.12630 in pumpkin, 0.00393, 0.00169, 0.00032 in banana and 0.00004, 0.00004, 0.00005 in oranges) were below the threshold value of one(<1), thallium hazard quotient (0.39000,0.00000, 0.39710 in green leaf , 0.25130, 0.00480, 0.00000 in pumpkin, 0.02678, 0.28891, 0.41610 in banana and 0.01560, 0.00000, 0.01560 in oranges) were below the threshold value of (<1), while iron ( with the hazard quotient of 3.7766, 1.5625, 2.2131, across the three (3) selected markets in green leaf, 2.1817, 2.0986, 3.0843 in pumpkin, 1.5941, 2.3908, 1.8207 in banana) highly exceeded the threshold value of one (>1) but hazard quotients of iron in oranges (0.00008, 0.0023, 0.0023) were found below the threshold value (<1). Considering the possible health effects due to the consumption of contaminated fruits and vegetables, it is required that proper actions should be taken to avoid chronic exposure to high concentrations of these metals and ultimately reduce the adverse health effects they may pose.
