Abstract:
Salt is an essential component in the human diet Salt contains minute quantities of essential and non-essential metal elements, other than sodium and chloride. Salt requirement of Sri Lanka is almost entirely
fulfilled by seawater processing in the salterns located in semi-arid regions (Northwestern and South-southeastern) of the country. The surface circulation pattern of the seawater around Sri Lanka indicates
possible contaminant loading and concentration in seawater. This may affect the quality of the edible salt
produced from the seawater. Thus, the current study was conducted to investigate the amount of heavy
metals in commercially available table salt products in Sri Lanka. Two salt samples representing two
major salterns (located in South-southeastern and the Northwestern region) were randomly selected from
the local market and analyzed for Cu, Fe, Pb, Cd, Cr, and Zn levels using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy.
Only Fe and Cd were detected in both salt samples, and higher concentrations of both the ions were
observed in the salt produced in the South-southeastern region than the Northwestern region. This could
be linked with swirling and mixing of seawater currents, loaded with contaminants while moving along
the west coast, in the south-southeastern region resulting in concentration of metal elements in seawater.
The estimated Fe intakes with salt (0.059 and 0.092 mg per 6 g of salt per day, for Salt A and B,
respectively) was less than the daily requirement of 15 mg specified by the WHO, whereas the estimated
daily Cd intakes from salt A and B (0.018 and 0.024 mg per 6 g of salt) appeared to be similar to the
provisional tolerable monthly intake of 0.025 mg/kg of body weight. Therefore, findings of this inceptive
study suggest that detailed investigation on the composition of salt products including temporal and
geographical variability, possible contaminations in the production process and daily dietary salt intake
levels would add valuable information to the avenues of heavy-metal intake.
