These values are less than one, thus indicating that the subjects are not exposed to any health risk via cow meat consumption. THQs obtained in this study for Pb and Cd were lower than 1.43-1.99 for Pb, and 2.61-6.25 for Cd reported by Zhuang et al. (2008) for food crops in south China but are similar to 0.004-0.68 for Cd reported by Hans et al. (1998) for sea foods in Taiwan