Physical and Chemical Methods for Reduction in Aflatoxin Content of Feed and Food

Abstract

Aflatoxins (AFs) are among the most harmful fungal secondary metabolites imposing serious health risks on both household animals and humans. The more frequent occurrence of aflatoxins in the feed and food chain is clearly foreseeable as a consequence of the extreme weather conditions recorded most recently worldwide. Furthermore, production parameters, such as unadjusted variety use and improper cultural practices, can also increase the incidence of contamination. In current aflatoxin control measures, emphasis is put on prevention including a plethora of pre-harvest methods, introduced to control Aspergillus infestations and to avoid the deleterious effects of aflatoxins on public health. Nevertheless, the continuous evaluation and improvement of post-harvest methods to combat these hazardous secondary metabolites are also required. Already in-use and emerging physical methods, such as pulsed electric fields and other nonthermal treatments as well as interventions with chemical agents such as acids, enzymes, gases, and absorbents in animal husbandry have been demonstrated as effective in reducing mycotoxins in feed and food. Although most of them have no disadvantageous effect either on nutritional properties or food safety, further research is needed to ensure the expected efficacy. Nevertheless, we can envisage the rapid spread of these easy-to-use, cost-effective, and safe post-harvest tools during storage and food processing.

Mycotoxins—Prevention, Detection, Impact on Animal Health

“…Physical methods also include drying, washing, cleaning, sorting, grinding, cooking, baking, irradiating, extrusion, microwave heating and peeling [46]. Chemical methods include treating seeds with ammonia, application of chitosan, ozonation [51][52][53].…”

Aflatoxins: History, Significant Milestones, Recent Data on Their Toxicity and Ways to Mitigation

“…Several valuable original research articles [157][158][159] and reviews [97,98,[160][161][162][163] on AF mitigation have been published over the last three years.…”

“…Numerous post-harvest methods to combat AFs are also required, such as emerging physical methods (e.g., non-thermal treatments as pulsed electric fields), interventions with chemical agents (e.g., adsorbents, acids, enzymes, and gases), interventions with microbiological agents (e.g., bacteria, yeast and microfungi), and genetic engineering technologies. These methods have been reported to be effective in mycotoxin diminution in food and feed [97,98,[160][161][162].…”

Mycotoxins in Pistachios (Pistacia vera L.): Methods for Determination, Occurrence, Decontamination

“…Recently, non-thermal processes like Cold Plasma treatment, electron beam irradiation and pulsed electric field have been applied to reduce mycotoxin contamination with good results in different foodstuffs [155][156][157][158]. These techniques are processed at near room temperature, and so do not significantly affect the nutritional status or the organoleptic properties, constituting alternatives to the conventional decontamination techniques for pistachio [159][160][161]. Cold plasma treatment (CP) is an interesting tool to reduce mycotoxins due to both fungi reduction and mycotoxin degradation in all food chains [162,163].…”