Assessment of potentially toxic elements in some wild edible plants of district Doda, Jammu and Kashmir, India

Wild edible plants have played a crucial role since ages, in sustaining the local communities across globe, particularly during food scarcity, by supplementing the household diets. Despite their significance, the nutritional composition of wild edible plants has been inadequately researched and generally poorly understood. Moreover the studies of nutritional contents usually overlook the presence of potentially toxic elements(PTEs) which may be detrimental to the human health. This study was aimed at assessing the levels of PTEs (Al, As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, Sr and Zn), in selected wild edible plants traditionally consumed by rural people of District Doda. For this purpose the leaves of three wild edible plants, namely Taraxacum officinale, Urtica dioica and Phytolacca acinosa were collected, air-dried and processed into powder. The plant samples were analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). The findings of this study exhibited that PTEs were detectable in all the three tested wild edible plants. The levels of PTEs (mg/1000gdw) were found to be Cu (18.1 to 36.1), Fe (646.6 to 1457.8), Mn (80.4 to 207.6), Se (0.1 to 0.3) and Zn (58.2 to 86.8), PTEs Al, As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Sr were also detectable in all the three analyzed plant samples. The Al content was found to be highest among these PTEs (427.7 to 1224.4 mg/ 1000 g dw) which can pose health risks.