Effect of Heat Treatments on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Formation in Meat

A total of 80 samples of both beef and mutton (40, each), which were either raw or cooked by different cooking methods such as pan-frying, charcoal-grilling and charcoal-grilling with aluminum foils covers (n=10 for each of beef and mutton) besides 10 samples from raw meat of each type. The samples were collected from different restaurants at Zagazig City, Sharkia Governorate, Egypt. The samples were prepared for detection of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo [a] anthracene, chrysene, benzo [b] fluoranthrene, benzo [k] fluoranthene, benzo [a] pyrene, Indeno [1,2,3c-d] pyrene, Dibenzo [a,h] anthracene and Benzo [g,h,i] perylene). The recorded results showed that the total PAHs for raw, fried, charcoal grilled and foil grilled beef samples were 0.247, 1.152, 6.833 and 1.265 μg/kg respectively. Meanwhile, PAHs residual concentrations in mutton samples were 1.09, 4.606, 26.819 and 6.279 μg/kg in raw, pan-fried, charcoal-grilled and foil-grilled mutton samples respectively. We found also when meat wrapped in aluminum foil during grilling, it leads to a decrease in the total PAHs in the meat samples.