Evaluation and Risk Issues

Mycotoxin contamination of crops may cause economic losses at all levels of food and feed production including crop and animal production. Nearly 40% of the 1990 crop in western and central New York was not sold because of mycotoxins contamination. Procedures for the decontamination of mycotoxin-contaminated crops and feed are necessary since mycotoxins are widespread in most countries of the world at levels that may be of concern for animal and human health. Although the prevention of mycotoxin contamination of plant, dairy and meat products is the main goal of food and agricultural industries throughout the world, under certain environmental conditions the contamination of various food and feed with toxigenic fungi and mycotoxins are unavoidable for producers.

This section focuses on several aspects of possible approaches to reduce mycotoxins contamination in agricultural and food commodities (physical, chemical and biological decontamination). While certain treatments have been found to reduce concentrations of specific mycotoxins, no single method has been developed that is equally effective against the wide variety of mycotoxins that may co-occurs in different plant products. The ideal decontamination procedure should be easy to use, inexpensive and should not lead to the formation of compounds that are still toxic or can alter the nutritional and palatability properties of the food and feed. Cereal grain, grain products, and cereal based food and feed will be regarded more extensively. Available methods for mycotoxins detoxification will be critically reviewed in order to estimate their efficacy since methods that may appear effective in vitro do not necessarily retain their efficacy when tested in vivo.

Food processing by itself may destroy, reduce or redistribute mycotoxins since these compounds are relatively stable under most food processing conditions and can be detected in most cereal based foods. Information of the fate of mycotoxins during food processing and cooking will be reported bearing in mind that in investigating the effect of food processing, it is essential that methods of analysis must be applicable to both starting material and finished product(s).

Results of research on fumonisins (decontamination, food processing and biomarker of exposure) carried out at ITEM will also be reported.

The mycotoxins considered for the activities reported above will be: aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, fumonisins, trichothecenes (deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, T-2 toxin), zearalenone, Alternaria toxins (AAL toxins, tenuazonic acid, alternariols and altertoxins), patulin and ergot.

In addition to the supply of these information we will be running an interactive training course on the decontamination procedures to reduce mycotoxins in agricultural and food commodities.