Chromium in basic foods of the Spanish diet: seafood, cereals, vegetables, olive oils and dairy products

In the present study, graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry ŽGFAAS. was used to determine the content of total chromium in some basic foods of the Spanish diet. The seafood samples, vegetables and olive oils were mineralized previously with HNO3 and V2O5. A procedure of slurries with Triton X-100 was applied to dairy products. The temperature-time program was optimized for every type of sample. An assessment of the analytical characteristics of the method verifies their reliability. The content of Cr ranged between 0.004 and 0.079 g g in seafood Žfresh wt.., from 0.007 to 0.456 g g in cereals and vegetables Žfresh wt.., between not detectable and 0.625 g g in dairy products and between not detectable and 0.040 g g in olive oils. The high consumption of these products conditions the fact that they should be significant sources of Cr in the diet.