Abstract: With different digestion method and measuring method，the cadmium content of harmful inorganic elements in foods was determined and compared，meanwhile，the statistical methods for data processing were used， and then the data were analyzed， thus the more suitable digestion and determination methods were found. The results showed that wet digestion with graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry and the wet digestion with flame atomic absorption spectrometry were used to measure the recovery，the differences of recovery rates were small，the standard deviation of wet digestion with flame atomic absorption spectrometry was the smallest and the precision was the highest.Comprehensive comparison showed the determination of cadmium in foods with the wet digestion and flame atomic absorption spectrometry was most reasonable.

Key words: cadmium, graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry, flame atomic absorption spectrometry, dry digestion；wet digestion