Selenium Content of Foods '

V. C. MORRIS AND O. A. LEVANDER Human Nutrition Research Division, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland 20705

ABSTRACT The selenium content of a wide variety of foods representing a cross section of the American diet was determined by fluorometry. Most fruits and vegetables contained quantities of selenium less than 0.01 ig/g.Exceptions were garlic, mushroom, and radish containing 0.25, 0.13 and 0.04 pg/g, respec tively. Grain products varied widely in their selenium content with cornflakes containing as low as 0.025 Mg/g and barley cereal as high as 0.66 /g/g.Whole wheat flour, whole wheat bread and brown sugar contained two to four times more selenium than did white flour, white bread and white sugar. Of the milk products assayed, table cream was the lowest in selenium and skim milk the highest (0.005 vs. 0.05 Mg/g). Dried skim milk powder samples ranged from 0.095 to 0.24 ng/g. Meat samples ranged from about 0.1 jug/g for chicken muscle to as high as 1.9 Mg/g for pork kidney with most values between 0.2 and 0.5 ng/g. The content of seafood was generally higher, ranging from 0.4 to 0.7 g/g. These values suggest that a diet well balanced in other nutrients is probably also nutri tionally adequate with regard to selenium, although possible effects of cooking, processing, geographical variation and biological availability remain to be inves tigated. J. Nutr. 200: 1383-1388, 1970.

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Since the discovery by Schwarz and Foltz in 1957 that selenium prevents liver necrosis in rats (1), a wide variety of ani mal diseases has been found to respond to selenium (2-4). In spite of this overwhelm ing body of evidence strongly implicating selenium as an essential trace element for all species, there have been few data to suggest the occurrence of a selenium defi ciency in man. Schwarz discussed the pos sible involvement of selenium in kwashiorkor, a proteincalorie deficiency disease, as early as 1961 (5) and this has been con firmed by a preliminary report (6). Burk et al. found that the selenium level in whole blood and plasma of Guatemalan children was lower in those suffering from kwashiorkor than in normal controls (7). Dayton et al.* have reported lower values of selenium in the placentas of undernour ished Guatemalan women as compared with women from the United States. Al though the selenium content of a wide va riety of animal feeds has been surveyed in the literature (8), there exist few data concerning amounts of selenium in foods consumed by humans. Hopkins and Majaj (9) stated that the level of selenium in five
J. NUTRITION, OO: 1383-1388.

composite samples of typical balanced diets for adolescent American males was lower than their detection limit for selenium by neutron activation analysis (< lOppb). The present paper reports values for se lenium in a variety of common food items assayed using a fluorometric technique. This technique allows the precise and ac curate determination of selenium in the nanogram range. The values found suggest that, with certain qualifications, there ex ists an adequate level of selenium in the human dietary of the United States.
METHOD

Samples. Foods representing a cross section of the American diet were chosen for analysis. Samples were purchased in the Beltsville, Maryland, area from local food stores. Brand name products were se lected whenever possible.
Received for publication May 29, 1970. ' A preliminary report of this work was given at the Fifty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Atlantic City, N. J., April 12-17, 1970. 2 Dayton, D. H., L. J. Filer and C. Canosa 1969 Cellular changes in the placentas of undernourished mothers in Guatemala. Federation Proc. 28: 488 (abstr.). 1383

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Preparation of samples. A new contain er was opened for each analysis and dupli cate aliquots taken for analysis. Fresh vegetables and fruits were homogenized in a glass food blender to obtain homogene ous samples. Only edible portions were used with the peeling being discarded in most cases. Lean muscle samples of meats were assayed and fat and connective tissue were avoided. All samples were assayed as re ceived with no cooking or drying per formed, since selenium might be lost as a result of these processes. Procedure. Selenium content was deter mined using the fluorometric technique of Hoffman et al. (10). This method involves digesting the sample in a nitric-sulfuricperchloric acid mixture, masking poten tial interferences with disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate, complexing selenium with freshly prepared 2-3,diaminonaphthalene solution and determining selenium fluorometrically after extraction of the com plex into cyclohexane. Samples were acti vated in a spectrophotofluorometer3 at 365 m/j. and fluorescence read at 525 m/j.. Standard curves were drawn with each set of analytical determinations and reproducibility was found to be excellent. Recovery experiments showed that selenium added to food samples as selenite could be car ried through the entire procedure essen tially without loss. One variation in the Hoffman procedure was necessary when the food sample being assayed contained more than 0.05 ^g Se/ gram. In such cases, 1-g samples were di gested and then the acid digest was diluted with glass-distilled water to a constant vol ume. Suitable aliquots of the diluted acid digest were taken for analysis. Appropriate adjustments were made in the amounts of ammonium hydroxide that were added so that a constant acid/base ratio was main tained. Sample volumes were equalized with glass-distilled water prior to the addi tion of the diaminonaphthalene reagent. Selenium-free sulfuric acid was used in the digestion mixture and in the prepara tion of the diaminonaphthalene solution. It was prepared by diluting concentrated sulfuric acid with an equal volume of water, adding 15 ml of reagent grade 48% hydrobromic acid per 200 ml of the mix ture, and heating strongly until the volume

was the same as that of the original con centrated sulfuric acid (11).
RESULTS

Most fruits and vegetables were found to contain less than 0.01 ^g Se/gram as shown in table 1. Some of the root vege tables contained considerably higher values ranging from 0.015 /ig/g frwhite onion to 0.249 /ig/g for garlic. It is interesting that garlic had the highest selenium con tent of the vegetables assayed since it has been noted that certain selenium com pounds have a garlic-like smell ( 1). Mush rooms contained 0.131 ug/g; radish, 0.039 /g/g;and carrots and cabbage, 0.022 jug/g. Allaway (12) reported that a poisonous mushroom, Amanita, took up significant amounts of selenium even when grown in soils containing low levels of selenium. No consistent relationship could be found be tween canned and fresh vegetables. Canned carrots had half as much selenium as fresh, whereas canned tomatoes and canned potatoes had about twice as much selenium as fresh. Green beans, corn and mushrooms had about the same selenium content in both the fresh and canned states. The selenium contents of all fruits assayed were 0.013 /g/gor below. No dif ferences were found between canned and fresh samples of apples, peaches, pears or pineapples. The selenium values for grain products assayed are given in table 2. A consider able difference between white bread and flour and whole wheat bread and flour was found (0.277 and 0.193 vs. 0.665 and 0.636 Mg/g). White sugar (0.003 Mg/g) and brown sugar (0.011 ig/g) demon strated the same relationship (see table 3). Although the difference between white and brown rice was not as striking (0.318 vs. 0.388 /g/g),the previous data suggest that the refining process might be destroying or removing some of the selenium present in the raw products. Grain products varied greatly in their selenium content. Proc essed breakfast cereals such as corn flakes and puffed rice had very low levels (0.026 and 0.028 /g/g),whereas other processed cereals such as prepared oat cereal had comparatively higher values (0.428 /g/g).
* Aminco-Bowman, Silver Spring, Md. American Instrument Co., Inc.,

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SELENIUM CONTENT OF FOODS TABLE H content of vegetables

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There was also variation in the selenium content of the milk products assayed (ta ble 4). Table cream contained 0.005 /g/g, Product 2 lig Se/gram while skim milk had 0.048 /g/g.Homoge VegetablesCarrotsFreshCannedCabbage, nized whole milk and evaporated milk had values of about 0.01 ig/g.Cream substi tute taken on a dry weight basis had al freshCauliflower, most as much selenium as skim milk. Two freshCornFreshCannedGarlic, different samples of dried skim milk pow der were assayed with surprisingly differ ent results. One sample analyzed at 0.096 freshGreen jug/g which is identical to the value re freshGreen pepper, beansFreshCannedLettuce, ported by Hoffman et al. (10); the other sample contained 0.240 /*g/g. This could be due to differences in the geographical freshMushroomFreshCannedOnion, origin of the samples. Environmental fac tors, which have been reviewed extensively (13) may cause the selenium concentra freshPotatoesSweet, white, tions in foods from different geographical freshWhite, areas to vary widely. The most important freshWhite, factor is the selenium content of the soil. cannedRadish, Although Oregon is supposed to be one of freshTomatoesFreshCannedTurnips, the selenium-deficient areas as defined by Allaway and Gary (8), Hadjimarkos (14) found the difference between two samples fresh0.022,0.013,0.022,0.006,0.004,0.003,0.276,0.006,0.006,0.009,0.009,0.122,0.109,0.015,0.007,0.003,0.007,0.042,0.005,0.010,0.006,0.022 of eggs and milk from two areas within the state to be tenfold. However, other factors Mean excluding mush could influence the amount of selenium in room and garlic 0.010
Selenium and fruits
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FruitsApple, peeledApplesauce, fresh, cannedBanana, peeledOrange, fresh, peeledPeachFresh, fresh, peeledCannedPearFresh, peeledCanned

TABLE 2i Selenium content of grains and cereal products ProductBarley cerealBreadWhiteWhole wheatCorn

Se/gram0.643,0.280,0.676,0.024,0.187,0.627,0.662

flakesFlourWhiteWhole <PineappleFreshCanned0.003,0.002,0.010,0.014,0.004,0.004,0.006,0.002,0.006,0.008,0.0060.0020.0090.0120.0040.0020.006< 0.0020.0050.012 wheatNoodles, eggOat *Oats, breakfast cereal, prepared quickRicePolishedBrownRice

Mean

0.006

l Values represent separate assays of different aliquots taken from the same sample. 1 Selenium was determined on fresh products and results expressed on a fresh weight basis. Conversion of results to a dry weight basis could be accomplished by reference to standard food composition tables for values of moisture content of food products.

cereal,puffed, breakfast preparedWheat 3Wheat cereal cereal,prepared breakfast *Mean flakesand excluding corn rice cerealfig 1See footnote 1, table 1. 2 Cheerios, General Mills, Minneapolis, Minn. 3Wheatena, Standard Milling Co., Kansas City, Mo. Wheaties,General Mu-s,Minneapolis, Minn.

Prepared wheat cereal had a selenium con tent falling between these two extremes (0.105 /tg/g). Variation was also seen in some of the cereals generally cooked since barley contained 0.660 /ng/g; wheat cereal, 0.241 ng/g; and quick oats, 0.110 /g/g.

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V. C. MORRIS AND O. A. LEVANDER TABLE 51 Selenium content of meats and seafoods

TABLE 3i Selenium content of miscellaneous ProductEggYolk#lYolk

products

#2White #1White #2SaccharinSugarBrownWhite/ig

g Se/gram Product gram0.174,0.192,0.057,0.046,0.005,0.012,0.003,0.1930.1740.0570.0430.0050.0100.003 Se/ Meats BeefRound steakGroundLiverKidneyPorkChopKidneyLambChopKidneyChickenBreastLegSkin0.363,0

1See footnote 1, table 1. TABLE 41 Selenium content of dairy products ProductCheeseAmerican, processedCottageSwissCream, tableCream substituteMilkEvaporated, cannedSkimSkim, #1Skim, powdered, dried #2Whole powdered, dried homogenized/ig Mean i See footnote 1, table 1. 0.069 Mean i See footnote 1, table 1. 0.532
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Se/gram0.090,0.054,0.101,0.005,0.034,0.012,0.045,0.098.0.243,0.013,0.0900.0500.1080.0060.0330.0130.0500.09 0.224 Mean excluding kidneys Lobster tailShrimp, shelled,Cod, filletFlounder, filletOystersSeafoodsdeveined0.634,0.572,0.465,0.335,0.646,0.6810.6040.3900.3380.659

Selenium

TABLE 61 content of strained baby foods lig Se/gram 0.118, 0.112, 0.123, 0.247, 0.114, 0.002, 0.005, 0.003, 0.002, 0.026, 0.019, 0.016, 0.113 0.101 0.138 0.269 0.133 0.002 0.004 0.004 0.005 0.033 0.023 0.015

milk powder. For example, Fink " reported that the selenium content of skim milk powder was variable according to the method of drying. This is due to the vola tilization of the selenium during the dry ing process. Therefore, both the effects of processing and geographical location must be considered. Of the cheeses assayed, cottage cheese was the lowest with 0.052 /g/g,processed American cheese intermediate with 0.090 fig/g and Swiss cheese the highest with 0.104 /g/g(table 4). Egg yolk as shown in table 3 had selenium values three times higher than egg white (0.183 vs. 0.057 Mg/g). Fresh meats and seafoods (table 5) were found to be very good sources of selenium. The average value for steak, ground beef, chicken, pork chops and lamb chops was 0.22 /g/g.Chicken had the least selenium (0.134 /ig/g) and round steak the highest (0.340 ig/g).However, beef liver at 0.432 was almost twice as high as the aver-

Product Beef Chicken Lamb Liver Pork Carrots Green beans Peaches Pears Oatmeal cereal with applesauce and bananas Rice cereal with applesauce and bananas Vanilla custard pudding Mean i See footnote 1, table 1.

0.068

age. Beef, pork and lamb kidneys contained 1.55, 1.90 and 1.43 /g/g, respectively. Sheep kidney is known to be an excellent source of Factor 3, the biologically active form of selenium (5). The average con Fink, H. 1960 Selenium content of skim milk powders and their inclination for producing dietetic liver necrosis. Abstracts of the Fifth International Congress on Nutrition, Sept. 1-7, Washington, D. C., p. 19 (abstr.).

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tent of seafoods (0.53 /g/g)was consider ably higher than that of meats (0.22 /g/g). Shellfish such as oysters, shrimp and lob sters had an average selenium content of 0.63 /ig/g whereas cod and flounder fillets averaged only 0.38 /xg/g selenium. A few commercial baby foods were ana lyzed to obtain some indication of the ef fects of processing (table 6). The average value for chicken, beef, lamb and pork was only 0.12 /g/gwhereas for the fresh raw samples it was 0.22 /*g/g. Baby food liver contained 0.258 /xg/g whereas the fresh liver sample tested contained 0.432 ftg/g. The baby food fruits, cereals and vegeta bles were also lower than the fresh samples analyzed. These results could indicate that some selenium might be lost as a result of processing although, of course, the original materials used in the baby food manufac ture could have contained lower levels of selenium. While this work was in progress, a re port concerning the levels of selenium in foods appeared in Germany (15): the re sults generally agree well with our data when expressed on an equivalent basis.
DISCUSSION

The present results suggest that the lev els of selenium in the American diet are sufficient for good nutrition. Thompson and Scott (16) have shown that 0.04 to 0.10 ppm selenium are needed in the diet to prevent selenium deficiency in chickens depending on the vitamin E content of the diet. Assuming a reasonable intake of ani mal protein and grain products, most Americans should receive at least these lev els in their dietary. However, three impor tant qualifications should be considered before it is flatly assumed that persons in the U.S. need not worry about their seleni um intake. First of all, there may be cer tain local pockets of low selenium soil which could contribute to a possible defi ciency just as there are known to be high selenium areas that are hazardous for agri cultural purposes (13). These low selenium areas are well delineated geographically (17) and the use of interregional food ship ments should minimize any geographical contribution to selenium deficiency. Sec ondly, little is known regarding the avail ability and biopotency of selenium as it

occurs naturally in foods. There is a wide variation in the ability of various selenium compounds to prevent liver necrosis in rats (18). Many of the most active forms of se lenium (such as sodium selenite) are also the least stable chemically, whereas the relatively inert elemental selenium is essen tially without value in alleviating selenium deficiency diseases. Also, it has recently been stated 5 that the selenium in fish meal (which contains moderate levels of selen ium) is much less active than inorganic selenite in alleviating nutritional muscular dystrophy in chickens. Therefore, the total selenium content of foods may not be a valid indicator of their nutritional value. Finally, it must be recognized that many selenium compounds are quite volatile and could thus be lost as a result of food cook ing or processing. Although the experi ments were admittedly not controlled, the results obtained for the baby foods in this study suggest that selenium losses as a re sult of cooking or processing could be a major factor in determining the selenium content of an individual's diet. There is an obvious need for more research concerning the chemical forms of selenium that occur in foods, the biological effectiveness of these various forms, and the possible ef fects of cooking and processing on these forms.
LITERATURE CITED 1. Schwarz, K., and C. M. Foltz 1957 Selen ium as an integral part of Factor 3 against dietary necrotic liver degeneration. J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 79: 3292. 2. Hartley, W. J., and A. B. Grant 1961 A review of selenium-responsive diseases of New Zealand livestock. Federation Proc. 20: 679. 3. Nesheim, M. C., and M. L. Scott 1961 Nu tritional effects of selenium compounds in chicks and turkeys. Federation Proc. 20: 674. 4. Schubert, J. R., O. H. Muth, J. E. Oldfield and L. F. Remmert 1961 Experimental re sults with selenium in white muscle disease of lambs and calves. Federation Proc. 20: 689. 5. Schwarz, K. 1961 Development and status of experimental work on Factor 3 selenium. Federation Proc. 20: 665. 6. Schwarz, K. 1965 Selenium and kwashiorkor. Lancet 1: 1335. 7. Burk, R. F., Jr., W. N. Pearson, R. P. Wood, II and F. Viteri 1967 Blood selenium levels s Scott, M. L., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., per sonal communication.

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V. C. MORRIS AND O. A. LEVANDER Biochemistry, Toxicity and Nutrition. Aca demic Press, New York, pp. 41-51. Hadjimarkos, D. M. 1965 Effect of selen ium on dental caries. Arch. Environ. Health 10: 893. Oelschlager, W., and K. H. Menke 1969 ber Selengehalte pflanzlicher, tierischer und anderer Stoffe. 2. Mitteilung Selen- und Schwefelgehalte in Nahrungsmitteln. Z. Ernaehrungswiss. 9: 216. Thompson, J. N., and M. L. Scott 1969 Role of selenium in the nutrition of the chick. J. Nutr. 97: 335. Allaway, W. H., E. E. Cary and C. F. Ehlig 1967 The cycling of low levels of selenium in soils, plants and animals. In: Selenium in Biomedicine, ed., O. H. Muth. AVI Publish ing Co., Inc., Westport, Conn., pp. 273-296. Schwarz, K., and A. J. Fredga 1969 Biologi cal potency of organic selenium compounds. J. Biol. Chem. 244: 2103.

8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

and in vitro uptake of "Se in kwashiorkor. Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 20: 723. Allaway, W. H., and E. E. Cary 1966 The environmental background of selenium-defi ciency diseases. Feedstuff* 38: 62. Hopkins, L. L., Jr., and A. S. Majaj 1967 Selenium in human nutrition. In: Selenium in Biomedicine, ed., O. H. Muth. AVI Pub lishing Co., Westport, Conn., pp. 203-214. Hoffman, I., R. J. Westerby and M. Hidiroglou 1968 Precise fluorometric determina tion of selenium in agricultural materials. J. Ass. Offic. Anal. Chem. S3: 1039. Ewan, R. C., C. A. Baumann and A. L. Pope 1968 Determination of selenium in biologi cal materials. J. Agr. Food Chem. 16: 212. Allaway, W. H. 1969 Control of the en vironmental levels of selenium. In: Trace Substances in Environmental Health, vol. 2, ed., D. D. Hemphill. University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Mo., pp. 181-206. Rosenfeld, I., and O. Beath 1964 Selenium content of soils. In: Selenium: Geobotany,

14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

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