While plant-based foods offer many benefits, they carry some challenges associated with their formulation, nutritional content, and safety. Nutritional and toxic elements need to be routinely monitored in incoming raw materials and finished product, ensuring accurate label claims and compliance with adopted quality control criteria per specified regulatory bodies.
This work describes a method for the analysis of major and trace elements in plant-based food samples using the NexION® 2200 ICP-MS, meeting or exceeding the QC criteria in terms of detection limits, accuracy and stability in accordance with the U.S. FDA’s EAM 4.7, proving that the method and instrumentation used are suitable for the routine analysis of plant-based food products for making informed decisions on product formulation, evaluating composite samples for nutrition labeling purposes, and controlling the contamination of food supplies by heavy metals.