Critical review of rare earth elements (REE) in cultivated macrofungi

Falandysz, Jerzy, Fernandes, Alwyn R. and Zhang, Ji (2024) Critical review of rare earth elements (REE) in cultivated macrofungi. Food Control, 155. ISSN 0956-7135

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Abstract

Edible macrofungi are being increasingly cultivated as they are seen as a sustainable and popular food around the world. This trend is paralleled by the similar increase in the use of rare earth elements (REE) in consumer goods, which has raised the possibility of contamination in mushrooms. There is a growing recognition of REE as emerging environmental contaminants because of their occurrence in foodstuffs. Reports investigating REE occurrence in edible fungi have emerged over the last few years with some very recent data suggesting concentrations as high as ≤ 37,000 μg kg− 1 dw. Critical assessment of some studies has shown that some of REE concentration data reported in cultivated mushroom may be compromised by deficiencies in the analytical methodologies. These reports are characterised by unusual occurrence patterns that do not follow the fundamental rules of elemental occurrence (The Oddo-Harkins order). The available data has been critically assessed for reported concentrations as well as occurrence patterns, taking into account the methods used for REE determination. The results indicate that a significant proportion of the data are likely to be unsuitable for the purposes of risk assessment of human exposure to REE or to evaluate any increasing trend of REE contamination in food. Reliable analytics are an essential tool in chemical studies in life sciences, and this approach covers both routine and atypical studies, such as experiments with REE in mycology.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability: The authors do not have permission to share data.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	rare earths,edible mushrooms,food safety,fungi,lanthanides,macromycetes,mushrooms
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	28 Aug 2026 13:19
Last Modified:	01 Sep 2026 10:33
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/104389
DOI:	10.1016/j.foodcont.2023.110085

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