Unveiling Taro's (Colocasia esculenta) potential as a source of antioxidants and nutritional elements: Industrial impact on quantitative risk assessment of potentially toxic metals accumulation

• Taro is a good source of beneficial phytochemicals, antioxidants, and minerals. • Industrialization significantly altered taro's phytochemical levels. • Potentially toxic metals levels varied significantly from residential to industrial samples. • Even residential taro corms are not free from metal contamination. • Higher hazard index (HI) values indicated potential non-carcinogenic risk. With rapid industrialization and urbanization, persistent potential toxic elements in the human food chain have become a burning concern to international communities. The present study investigates the potential of an underutilized orphan root crop, Taro (Colocasia esculenta) , as a possible source of bioactive compounds –phenolics (180.56–17.66 mg GAE/100 g sample) and flavonoids (50.37–21.93 mg QE/100 g sample)–, antioxidants and minerals (Mg: 183.33–75, P: 203–73, Ca: 740–46 and Na: 393–133.33 mg kg -1 ) to promote its utilization in food industries. In addition, this study estimated the levels of potential toxic metals in corm samples collected from industrially active: Jute industry sites (JTS), Textile sites (TXS), Tannery sites (TNS), Chemical industry sites (CMS), Feed industry sites (FDS), and inactive: Residential site (RDS) regions of Jashore, Bangladesh and assessed the associated human health risks. ICP-OES was used to analyze the samples, and the probable human health risk was evaluated using the estimated Hazard Index (HI) and Lifetime cancer risk (LcR). The concentration of the studied toxic metals, such as Cr, Cd, and Pb, and potentially toxic metals, such as Zn, Ni, Fe, Cu, and Mn, ranged as 1.8–19.33, ND, ND-6.33, 3.23–146.67, ND-29.16, 5.43–3583.33, 4.43–266.67, and 0.45–7.3 in taro corm samples and 2.76–42.33, ND-1.26, ND-153.33, 3.27–163.33, 32.67–55.67, 436.67–7666.67, 1.47–9.47, and 4.16–213.33 mg kg -1 , respectively, in the associated soil samples. HI values greater than unity in RDS, JTS, FDS, TNS, and CMS indicated the associated non-carcinogenic risk to adults. In addition, LcR showed that all the samples pose an associated cancer risk. Furthermore, multivariate analysis revealed three principal components explaining 86.69 % of the total variance, while there were two significant clusters of the taro samples. Overall, this study demonstrated the potential of taro corms as a valuable source of advantageous phytochemicals while confirming the effect of industrialization on the accumulation of potentially toxic metals and their phytochemicals. This study underscores the necessity of continuous monitoring by regulatory authorities to prevent metal deposition in farmlands from industrialization and urbanization through sewage, agrochemicals, and industrial wastewater to avoid adverse health consequences.