Determination of selenium in selected food samples from Argentina and estimation of their contribution to the Se dietary intake

Abstract

An optimised FI-HGAAS method was applied to determine the total selenium concentrations in selected high consumption food (fish, beef, chicken, milk, rice, wheat flour, egg) and to estimate their contribution to the Argentinean dietary intake, whose information is scarce nowadays. Through several optimisation steps a suitable method was achieved showing satisfactory figures of merit for all matrices. Average recovery was 96%, RSD < 5%, LODs ranged 2.0-7.0 μg kg-1 and the accuracy was assessed using DOLT-3 NRC certified reference material. Meat and eggs showed the highest values (in μg kg-1, beef: 42-153; chicken: 62-205; fish: 94-314; canned tuna: 272-282; eggs: 134-217), minor values were found for wheat flour (22-42), rice: (<22), pasta (47-64) and milk (<7-9). An estimated intake of 32 and 24 μg day-1 for adult men and women, respectively, suggested a deficient Se intake, leading to further comprehensive surveys of Se occurrence in Argentina.