Fruit and vegetables play a major role in human nutrition due to richness of nutrients, dietary fibre, and phytochemicals. As dietary intake is identified as one of the dominant exposure pathways to perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), a cross-sectional study involving determination of their levels in food of plant origin has been conducted. Locally-grown and imported fruit and vegetable samples, collected in 2016 were inspected for 10 perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) using QuEChERS as sample pre-treatment procedure followed by micro-HPLC-MS/MS. Three of 10 target analytes, perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) were quantitatively determined. The detection frequency for PFASs across the 55 samples analysed was less than 10%. The major contributor of the total PFASs concentration in the investigated group was PFBA for which the concentration, reported only for banana, apple and orange samples, was 50.740 ng g-1 ww. The most often detected compound was PFOA. The origin and growing region are possible factors with the potential to influence PFASs distribution profile and their levels in food.
Keywords: Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs); QuEChERS method; contamination level; fruits; micro-HPLC-MS/MS; vegetables.