Effects of cooking on levels of PCBs in the fillets of winter flounder
- Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
- Battelle Ocean Sciences, Duxbury, MA (United States)
- Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC (United States)
The consumption of contaminated fish has been shown to be a significant, pathway for human exposure. Risk assessors often assume that humans are exposed to the levels of contaminants in edible tissue of fish measured prior to preparation and cooking. This assumption may lead to overestimation or underestimation of risk since a particular cooking method may remove or transform toxic constituents in the flesh by thermal denaturation, vaporization, dissolution in aqueous tissue fluids or lipids that drip off the flesh, or extraction into cooling oil during deep fat frying. This paper presents and discusses the results of a study conducted to quantify the effect of preparation and cooking on PCB concentrations in the edible portion of winter flounder. The effects of broiling, pan frying, and deep frying in oil were tested on fillets from 21 fish. The change in total PCB concentrations and 18 specific PCB congeners was estimated using a mass-balance approach using the precooked PCB concentration on a wet-weight basis and the cooked concentration taking into account any change in fillet weight resulting from cooking. Deep frying in oil resulted in a 47% reduction in total PCB levels in fillet tissue, while pan frying and broiling did not result in a statistically significant difference in total PCB levels.
- OSTI ID:
- 49427
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-941189--; ISBN 1-56590-016-2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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