The amounts of daily arsenic intake from food have been reported by the joint FAO/WHO Expert Commitee on Food Additives, by Schroeder and Balassa, and by Nakao. Published values vary widely from 0.073mg per capita per day to 2.0mg per capita per day, mainly because no accurate methods for the determination of arsenic in various foods have been established.
I previously reported an accurate and highly sensitive method for the determination of arsenic in biological material that uses combined solvent extraction and carbon furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. I here report the accurate amounts of arsenic contained in various fuods. The amount of arsenic in the average Japanese diet was calculated based on the analyzed data from this study, and the per capita intake of foods was compiled by food groups. The daily intake of arsenic was determined to be approximately 0.126mg per capita per day in a diet of 1, 399g per day. This value compared fairly with Nakao's reported value of 0.073mg to 0.173mg per capita per day. The principal source of arsenic in the Japanese diet is fish, 72%; followed by seaweed, 10%; and rice, 10%.
