Mitigation of heavy metals in different vegetables through biological washing techniques

Abstract

Availability of nutritious and healthy food is the foremost challenging issue in all over the word. Vegetables are essential part in human diet and considered as natural reserves of nutrients gifted by Almighty Allah to human beings. Heavy metals are among the most toxic food pollutants and their intake through diet leads to several disorders. The sources of heavy metal contamination include waste water irrigation, industrial emissions, transportation and application of metal-based pesticides. In Pakistan this situation is more alarming as vegetables grown in peri-urban areas have shown high incidence of heavy metals accumulation. In this study effort was made to mitigate different heavy metals (Ar, Cd, Cr and Pb) in cauliflower, spinach, okra and brinjal collected from peri-urban areas through washing with different biological solutions. Heavy metals contents were determined by using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS). Vegetable showed high load of heavy metals in unwashed form that reduced significantly by washing with different biological solutions. Among the different biological solutions, washing of vegetables with 8% ginger solution was found to be more effective.