Detection of some heavy metals and bacterial contamination in canned vegetables

In this paper, thirty six samples of canned vegetables were collected randomly from different markets in Baghdad city from October 2013 till March 2014. The study includes identifying the concentration of some heavy metals (lead, nickel, zinc and iron) by flameless atomic absorption spectrophotometery. It was found that the higher concentrations of heavy metals in canned vegetables, was lead 1.179 ppm in olive, nickel 0.9078 ppm in olive, while zinc 10.143 ppm green peas and iron 90.601ppm in white asparagus; but the lower concentrations represents with lead 0.0021 ppm in green asparagus, nickel 0.0202 ppm in mushroom, while zinc 0.528 ppm in white asparagus and iron 4.061 ppm in green peas. Canned food has been reported to be contaminated mainly by spores forming bacteria of the genera Bacillus main sources of a meal. The bacteria that reported in this study were bacillus spp.