Occurrence of mutagenic/carcinogenic heterocyclic amines in meat and fish products, including pan residues, prepared under domestic conditions

Some typical Swedish meat and fish products, e.g. bacon, beefburgers, meatballs, Baltic herring, salmon, smoked fish, black pudding and sausages, and their corresponding pan residues, were analysed by HPLC for their content of mutagenic/carcinogenic heterocyclic amines (HAs). The products were cooked using recommended domestic cooking conditions concerning temperature, time and frying equipment The amount of HAs was low in most products, though the amount was higher in the pan residues, especially in the pan residue from the frying of Falun sausage, which contained 18.5 ng HAs/g cooked product Mostly MelQx (2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline) and 4,8-DiMeIQx (2-amino-3,4,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]-quinoxaline) were found, being 0.03–2.8 ng MelQx/g and n.d.-3.4 ng 4,8-DiMeIQx/g cooked product in the food products and 0.05–73 ng MelQx/g and n.d.-2.8 ng 4,8-DiMelQx/g cooked product in the pan residues. High levels of IQ (2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline), 10.5 ng/g, were only found in well-done bacon and a correlation was seen between fat content and IQ formation. Low levels of MelQ (2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline) and PhIP (2-amino-l-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine) were found in the foods.