Investigation on emerging contaminants in foods of animal origin

In recent years there has been a growing interest from the scientific community in contaminants of emerging concern which include a large group of currently unmonitored chemicals, such as PFAS and DRCs, which are released from human activities and accumulate in the environment and in the food chain causing potentially dangerous damage to health. The aim of this thesis was to determining the levels of PFAS in commercial and domestic Italian eggs, and DRCs in different food samples purchased from Italian and French large-scale retailers. The results show PFAS contamination at much higher levels in domestic eggs then commercial eggs. This can be explained by the fact that hens that live outdoors and have the possibility to scratch in the soil, are more exposed to these substances compared to hens raised in industrial systems. Regarding DRCs contamination the procedural contamination encountered during the analysis of the samples led to an underestimation of the real values of contamination. Despite this, for both France and Italy, the food category most contaminated by DRCs was that of fish and seafood. The Italian samples showed DP contamination also in meat and eggs, and in eggs at levels higher than all other food categories considered. From the comparison with the reported works, it emerged that eggs, after fish, have the highest average levels of DP. This, added to the results obtained for PFAS on eggs, highlights how eggs are also an important source of food exposure to emerging contaminants. In conclusion, the general trend also confirmed by the available literature, shows that one of the main sources of dietary exposure for humans to some classes of emerging contaminants are fish products, to which the category of eggs is also added, as has been shown a source of exposure not to be underestimate.