Impacts of cooking on the occurrence of bioavailable dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethanes (DDTs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in fish are important for assessing consumers’ potential health risk, but have not been clearly understood. To fill this knowledge gap, the present study examined the bioaccessibilities of DDTs and PBDEs in cooked fish (yellow grouper; Epinephelus awoara) using the Colon Extended Physiologically Based Extraction Test. They increased from 48% to 98% and from 33% to 62%, respectively, with the addition of plant oil to the testing mixtures, but decreased to 83% and 44% in fish cooked with oil. This suggested that cooking oil should be considered as an important factor in mediating the bioaccessibility of organic contaminants during food processing. Human health risk assessment based on bioaccessibility-calibrated concentrations of DDTs and PBDEs in fish showed that the maximum allowable daily fish consumption rates decreased from 32, 77, and 113 g d-1 to 17, 42, and 62 g d-1 for children, youth, and adult, respectively, before and after fish were cooked with oil. These findings indicated that cooking oil may have become a significant but largely neglected source of potential health risk to the general population and should be well addressed.

Significance of cooking oil to bioaccessibility of DDTs and PBDEs in raw and cooked fish

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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