Keywords: Food quality, Minerals in food.

CONCLUSIONS:
Mineral elements, either physiologically essential or heavy metal residues, are useful indicators of food and diet quality. The dietary intake of the essential mineral elements is mainly determined by the individual choice of foods. Agricultural practices are a minor factor in this respect. The intake of heavy metals is generally low and tolerable, and any health risk caused by their presence in food is negligible, at least in the industrial countries. However, the ecological signal given by the elevated levels of residues is something that we should consider very carefully and with great concern.

Prof. P Varo, Department of Applied Chemistry and Microbiology, University of Helsinki, Finland.

14 pages, 3 figures, 9 tables.