[Dioxin-l] dioxin in burgers

[david bell]

Hi Jon

>The point of the paper is that
>the original exposure estimate due to ingestion of these foods was
>originally based on uncooked concentration, and Schecter et al wanted to
>find out whether cooking affected this, and obviously found that it did, by
>a factor of 2 or so for beef. Broiling of beef throws off fat, and
>apparently about half of the dioxin is thrown off with this fat.

Schechter's paper actually finds that broiling doesn't make much difference 
to hamburgers- about 20 % when you compare TEQs before and after. So we are 
still talking about 150-200 pg/kg of TEQ.

>
>When the EPA 1994 Reassessment was released, the range of TEQ for beef for
>samples from around the U.S. was 0.3-1.5 pg/gram TEQ, I believe (I don't
>have Dying From Dioxin in front of me at the moment). The concentration of
>dioxins in food varies widely depending on the source and feeding of the
>animals involved. The AVERAGE for hamburger at that time (and I don't think
>it has changed much) was considered to be 1.0 pg/gm TEQ. (See Dioxins and
>Health by Schecter or Dying From Dioxin by Lois Gibbs). Thus my estimate of
>100 pg for a 100 gram McDonalds hamburger. Schecter's paper would modify
>this estimate down to 50 pg actual exposure.

Schechter found 150 pg of TEQ per kg.
If you have a 0.1 kg hamburger, with 150 pg/kg, I make this 15 pg of TEQ.

In all fairness, many of the measurements of TEQ in beef come at around 0.1- 
1.

It may be optimistic to assume that hamburgers have much to do with beef 
content :-(

<snip>
>Note especially the dioxin and coplanar PCB concentration in freshwater
>fish: 2.4 pg/gram TEQ. A 50 gram (1/8 pound) serving of fish provides us
>with 120 picograms of dioxin/PCB TEQ.

see
http://www.doh.gov.uk/pub/docs/doh/pcddfish.pdf
for more discussion about fish dioxin levels.

cheers
david


>http://www.epa.gov/ncea/docs/cooktemp.wpd
>http://www.epa.gov/ncea/relpubs.htm#sources
>http://www.epa.gov/ncea/docs/food99.wpd

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