LAUSR

Abstract Wild-grown mushrooms are known to bioaccumulate significant amounts of mercury. However, there is no data on Hg in cooked mushroom found in stir-fried in deep oil meals, which is a popular way of cooking in Asia. Content, possible intake and distribution of Hg in the morphological parts (caps and stipes) of both uncooked (raw) and cooked (stir-fried in deep oil) fruiting bodies of the Baorangia bicolor, Boletus calopus, Boletus flammans, Boletus obsclereumbrinus, Rubroboletus sinicus, Boletus speciosus, Rugiboletus extremiorientalis mushrooms and in unidentified Xerocomus sp. were investigated. Mushrooms from the region adjacent to the city of Yuxi in the Yuxi county, Yunnan Province, SW China were foraged in 2017. Stir-fried in deep oil boletus mushrooms are have high culinary value and are about 4 times more calorific than fresh mushrooms. Due to the significant dehydration caused by high-temperature cooking and the limited loss of Hg, fried mushrooms may contain lower concentrations of Hg than fresh mushrooms when calculated on a dry basis, but the value may be higher on a whole (wet) weight basis. The median values of Hg concentration, when expressed on a whole (wet) weight basis, were in the range 0.046 to 0.75 mg kg−1 in raw mushrooms and 0.33 to 2.2 mg kg−1 in the fried mushrooms. Estimated intake of Hg, resulting from consumption by adults (body weight 60 kg) of 100 g × 1 to 100 g × 7 per week of fried mushrooms, was equivalent to doses in the range from 0.55 to 3.7 μg kg−1 body weight (RfD is 0.3 μg kg−1 body weight) to 3.8 to 26 μg kg−1 body weight (PTWI is 4.0 μg kg−1 body weight) respectively.