Dietary Exposure to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and the Probabilistic Health Risk Assessment of Eating Roasted Yams (Dioscorea Species) by African Population

The roasting of food is one of the oldest food preparation and preservation technologies. Although roasted foods have been associated with potential health hazards, this processing method is still used in many foods. This study was carried out to ascertain the health risks of ingesting white (Dioscorea rotundata), and bitter yam (Dioscorea dumetorum) roasted with firewood, charcoal, and charcoal augmented with PET bottles. The PAH content in all the roasted yam samples was identified and analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). A total of 8 PAHs were identified in both yam species; however, bitter yam roasted with augmented charcoal contained 9 PAHs. The total EDI showed that bitter yam roasted with augmented charcoal (6.59E-1) had the highest PAH content while white yam roasted with only charcoal contained the lowest (1.27E-1). The hazard quotients and indexes revealed that bitter yam had the highest HQ in all the roasting methods except for napathalene, fluoranthene and benzo (a) pyrene in samples roasted with charcoal.  The HI for both species in all the roasting methods was above 1 (>1), while firewood produced the highest HI. Benzo (a) anthracene was the most potent PAH identified across the yam species and the roasting techniques. The evaluated ILCR showed that dibenzo (a, h) anthracene identified in white yam smoked with charcoal had the highest tendency to cause cancer (6.38E-1) while the least PAH was acenaphthylene (3.35E-6) which was seen in bitter yam roasted with charcoal. Therefore, it is necessary to inform the consumers of the possible health implications associated with consuming roasted yams and especially yam roasted with augmented charcoal