Determination of heterocyclic amines in ready to eat chicken kabab commercially available from pakistani markets

Abstract

Presence of heterocyclic amines (HCAs) in high proteinaceous food specifically in cooked meats is a point of great concern for the health risk factor of Pakistani community. Ready-to-eat (RTE) chicken kabab samples of four commercially available brands (K, S, D and B) were analysed for the simultaneous determination of HCAs i.e. 2-amino-3-methyl-imidazo[4,5-f] quinoline (IQ), 2-amino-3,8- dimethylimidazo [4,5-f] quinoxaline (MeIQx) and 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo [4,5-b] pyridine (PhlP) using HPLC-UV detector. Quantitative analysis of the control samples (only thawed at room temperature) revealed presence of HCAs in K, S, D and B brands with respective values of 0.97, 1.09, 5.63 and 13.66 μg/g. The high thermal cookings of the RTE samples enhanced the levels of HCAs. Microwave cooking was found to produce highest total HCAs contents (0.71-35 μg/g) followed by deepfrying (1.62-22.21 μg/g) and pan-frying (1.11-8.57 μg/g) of the RTE chicken kabab samples. Highest level of IQ appeared following microwave cooking (nd-35μg/g) followed by pan-frying (0.25-7.48 μg/g), deep-frying (nd-2.3 μg/g) and defrosting (nd-0.2 μg/g). It is speculated from our results that dietary intake of 40g RTE ckicken kabab /day indicates a relatively very high consumption of HCAs/day which may catch the level up to 1.4 mg/d. To the best knowledge of the authors, it is the highest known dietary consumption value of HCAs worldwide. This study presents a plausible positive association between the high temperature cooking methods and higher quantities of HCAs in RTE Chicken kabab commercially available from Pakistani markets.