Elemental composition of organic and non-organic foods determined by PIXE

Nutrition and safety of foods is one of the more discussed topics in the modern society. We processed twenty food samples of the organic and non-organic origin in order to determine their elemental composition by the particle induced X-ray emission method. Except of some species (e.g., carrots), significant differences between the organic and non-organic types were not observed. Interestingly, the bananas' pulps showed higher content of several elements (K, Ca, Sr) than their peels. Heavy metals (metalloids) were found to be below their limits of detection in the studied food samples. (author)