Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are among the most toxic pollutants in the environment showing foods as the main source of human exposure. Based on this, this study aimed to determine 7 PCBs indicators of environmental contamination in 22 samples of rice and 18 samples of beans in Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. Furthermore, this study aimed to calculate the waste estimated daily intake, starting from the existing contamination in rice and beans, as well as wanted to determine the samples fat content to correlate with levels of PCBs. The extraction and purification of the compounds were performed via QuEChERS method followed by identification and quantification by GC-MS. PCBs 153 and 101 showed the highest mean concentration in the samples of rice and bean, respectively. Considering the sum of PCBs in the samples, this was 4.39ng g-1 for the rice and 4.17ng g-1 for the beans. In estimated daily intake, this was 7.82ng kg-1 and 3.14ng kg-1 of body weight per day, for the rice and beans, respectively. Regarding the percentage of fat the rice and beans samples had fat contents of 0.32% and 1.1%, respectively. However, the correlation with the PCBs levels was not significant. The results demonstrate that the State of RS has important sources of these persistent chemical waste contaminations
PCBs; rice; beans; estimated daily intake
