Mycotoxins in Functional Beverages: A Review

Abstract

Consumer dietary habits have drastically changed in recent decades and functional beverages now have a strong position in the market. The majority of these beverages are produced using simple processes that use raw products, such as cereals, legumes, fruits, and nuts, among others, and these are known to be frequently contaminated with mycotoxins. This review is focused on the occurrence of these toxic compounds in plant-based milks, fruit juices, and herbal teas. The fate of the toxins during processing is discussed to establish the potential risk posed by the consumption of these kind of beverages regarding mycotoxin uptake.

Mycotoxins in Serum and 24‐h Urine of Vegans and Omnivores from the Risks and Benefits of a Vegan Diet (RBVD) Study

“…In this context, it is worth mentioning that different plant-based milks were reported to be positive for AFB up to concentrations of 0.4 μg L -1 . [26] Interestingly, T-2 toxin and its metabolites were not detected in our study, even though T-2 and HT-2 toxin have been identified as critical mycotoxins of vegetarian diets in a study based on data from the second French total diet study [10] and T-2 was also detected in plant-based milks in concentrations up to 1.3 μg L −1 . [26]…”

“…DON is highly occurring in food samples of wheat and wheat products, maize, barley, oats, and beer as well as plant-based milks from European countries. [26,35] Accordingly, associations between total cereals intake and urinary total DON levels were shown for two out of three subsamples of a representative European study. [2] Similarly to Gerding et al, [20] we did not observe any significant association between urinary DON-GlcA levels and dietary intake of food groups considered major sources of DON (e.g., "cereals & cereal products," "pasta & rice," or "beer").…”

“…In fact, OTA has been detected in several samples of plant-based milks. [26] Yet, high multi-collinearity of veganism with consumption of vegan products and the fact that the association with OTA levels diminished upon exclusion of non-consumers and vanished upon stratification by diet, calls for cautious interpretation.…”

“…[16,20] The observed association of serum EnB levels with intake of "cereals & cereal products" in our study is in line with known major sources of enniatins. [7,21] Interestingly, enniatins were also frequently detected in oat-milk, [26] yet, serum levels did not correlate with consumption of plant-based milks. Cereals are often cocontaminated with enniatins and other mycotoxins.…”

Biological Detoxification of Mycotoxins: Current Status and Future Advances

“…Most of them have complex chemical structures containing specific groups that confer the toxic effects. Basic information of the main mycotoxins including chemical structure, biological effect and producing fungi is summarized in Table 1 [21][22][23][24][25]. Aflatoxin (AFs) is the most widely studied mycotoxin encountered in agricultural commodities.…”