Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon in smoked meat sausages: effect of smoke generation source, smoking duration, and meat content

Abstract The current study was conducted to evaluate the effects of three generation sources of smoke (poplar, haloxylon, and white paper), smoking duration (2 and 4 h) and meat contents (55 and 80%) on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) levels of meat sausages. The results showed that there are a positive correlation between the lignin content of smoke generation sources and the PAHs level of smokes and smoked sausages. The total PAHs contents in both smoke and smoked sausages increased significantly as smoking duration increased from 2 to 4 h. The concentrations of total PAHs in the smoked sausage ranged from 6.35 to 20.04 μg⁄Kg. Furthermore, the benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) levels for the smoked sausages were 0.30 to 1.14 µg⁄Kg. However, the contents of BaP and PAH4 (benz[a]anthracene, chrysene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, and benzo[a]pyrene) were lower than the limit of detection (LOD) in all samples of the smoked sausages. The smoked sausage with 80% of meat content (less fat) processed by poplar and white paper for 2 h had the lowest level of PAHs.