Reducing Mycotoxin Risk in Food Processing

08 Nov 2016 --- According to a new paper commissioned by ILSI Europe’s International Life Sciences Institute, reducing mycotoxin levels in food products “would significantly lower the potential health risks to consumers and can also help reduce significant economic losses for industry.” It recommends food processing technologies that reduce mycotoxin levels should be integrated as much as possible in food production.

Mycotoxins (a toxin produced by a fungus) naturally occur in a wide range of food commodities including dairy, corn, cereals, dried fruits, nuts, coffee and spices. Pre-harvest prevention measures - like growing resistant crop varieties, crop rotation, soil tillage, plant disease management, insect control - are good preventative measures as well as post-harvest measures like good quality transportation and storage. However, they do not guarantee complete mycotoxin absence.

Food processing techniques that can reduce levels of mycotoxin contamination include physical, chemical, enzymatic and microbial methods. Physical processing methods (such as sieve-cleaning, flotation density sorting, heating and washing) are well established and efficient. Manual and automatic sorting, milling, steeping and extrusion can also significantly lower mycotoxin content in food. Heat treatment at specific time/temperature combinations is one of the most important physical treatments, by which to reduce the mycotoxin content in a finished product.

Detoxification also uses chemical methods to transform mycotoxins into less non-toxic compounds. This can also be achieved enzymatically or microbiologically because certain enzymes and microorganisms can transform mycotoxins into less or non-toxic compounds. According to the paper, these approaches need more development before they are used on a larger scale. 

The paper recommends prioritizing detoxification techniques that are suitable for high-risk products, such as staple foods that are consumed in high volumes as well as food commodities popular with young children. The authors note that further research is needed to get a better grasp the mechanisms of mycotoxin degradation and to identify resulting mycotoxin transformation products and their biological activity.