Multielement Profiling of Diverse Food Samples

Sensitive, accurate, and comprehensive assessment of
the mineral
element and metal content of food is important to guide recommendations
for nutrition and food safety. However, methods for this purpose currently
described in the literature are limited in the range of elements measured,
demonstrated application to diverse food matrices, and accessibility
of instrumentation. Here, we describe an inductively coupled plasma
mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) method for the simultaneous quantification
of 26 elements and illustrate the utility of the method with an analysis
of 100 foods from diverse plant and animal sources. New strategies
for customizing the standard curve across elements and correcting
for instrumental drift allow for the measurement of elements with
concentrations varying over 6 orders of magnitude. Results support
that this method offers a valuable high-throughput option for identifying
medically and culturally appropriate foods that may mitigate mineral
nutrient deficiency and foods that should be further assessed for
toxic element content.