Food safety issues in relation to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAHS) content with special reference to control trial

This study aimed to examine seventy-five different grilled chicken meat, represented by charcoal grilled chicken meat, grilled shawarma and shish tawook on heated grill (twenty-five from every type), that collected from random restaurants located in Al-kaliobia governorates, Egypt, to examine some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) technique, and evaluation of their contents against European Commission regulations standards limit “2 μg /Kg for Bap and 12 μg /Kg for PAH4”. Regarding the obtained findings, charcoal grilled samples showed the peak levels of PAHs and PAH4 that recorded as 20.71 ± 2.04 μg /Kg and 10.32 ± 0.95 μg /Kg, respectively, followed by shawarma “ showed 17.09 ± 1.26 μg /Kg for PAHs and 8.26 ± 0.69 μg /Kg for PAH4” and sheish tawook samples “ showed presence of 11.23 ± 1.26 μg /Kg for PAHs and 5.53 ± 0.44 μg /Kg for PAH4”. The application of thyme extract as marination in chicken meat preparation before grilling revealed significant reductions in total PAH4 levels by about 23.1%,46.8%, and 65.6% respectively in samples treated with thyme oil with concentration 0.5%, 1%, and 1.5% respectively, revealing it a promising treatment for safer grilled chicken meat products. Ultimately, the ongoing surveillance revealed that some grilled commercial ready-to-eat-chicken meat products in Egypt are safe for human consumption in terms of PAH levels. Moreover, addition of thyme as chicken meat marinade is a promising safe and natural way to diminish the level of PAHs in the grilled chicken meat products.