Ob jec tive To establish a simple, sensitive and accura temethod for the determ ination of totalmercury in food and d ieta ry samples (ma in ly cerea ls, m ilk powde r, fishes, vege tab les and fru its). M e thod D irec tMe rcury Ana lyzerwas app lied. The vapor of solid or liqu id sample could be ana lyzed directly at 2531 65 nm without any digestion procedures. R esu lts The linear range of thismethod was 021mg/kg. The detec tion limit was 01 008 ng. The linea r corre la tion factor ( r ) was higher than 019990, and the relative standard deviation (RSD ) was less than 51 0%. The results of de term ining American NIST referencemater ia ls, oyster tissue (NBS 1566) and sp inach (NBS 1570) , and that of ou r nationa l re fe rence mater ia ,l fishmeat (GBW 10029), were a ll in the scope of standard values. The Z scores of the resu ltwere lower than 01 5 in the FAPAS internationa l profic iency test. Conc lu sion The method is simp le, rap id, sensitive and accura te, and is app licab le for the demand of ana lysing tota lmercury in food and d ie tary samples