Research Publications (Food Safety)

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Aflatoxins are the most toxic natural mycotoxins discovered so far, posing a serious menace to the food safety and trading economy of the world, especially developing countries. How to effectively detoxify has persistently occupied a place on the list of “global hot-point” concerns.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Nearly 700,000 tonnes of peanuts are consumed annually in Europe. In the last 5 years, peanuts imported from China exceeded legal European Union (EU) aflatoxin limits more than 180 times. To prevent and mitigate aflatoxin contamination, the stages of the peanut chain most vulnerable to contamination must be assessed to determine how to interrupt the movement of contaminated produce.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, Volume 20, Issue 3, Page 2332-2381, May 2021. Aflatoxins represent a global public health and economic concern as they are responsible for significant adverse health and economic issues affecting consumers and farmers worldwide. Produced by fungal species from the Aspergillus genus, aflatoxins are a toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic group of fungal metabolites that routinely contaminate food and agricultural products.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Contamination of African staple foods is a major issue for human and animal health, nutrition, and trade. This review aimed to collect and synthesize the available evidence on geographical spread, scale of contamination, disease burden, economic impact, and mitigation measures for aflatoxins in Africa by way of a systematic literature review.

Application of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation for the degradation of chemical contaminants in food products has gained more and more interest in the past two decades. The majority of the research in this field was on mycotoxins, especially aflatoxins and patulin, with limited studies on pesticide residues and other chemical contaminants in food.

Mycotoxins are naturally occurring fungal metabolites that are associated with health hazards and are widespread in cereals including maize. The most common mycotoxins in maize that occur at relatively high levels are fumonisins (FBs), zearalenone, and aflatoxins; furthermore, other mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol and ochratoxin A are frequently present in maize. For these toxins, maximum levels are laid down in the European Union (EU) for maize raw materials and maize‐based foods.

Filamentous fungi represent a rich source of extrolites, including secondary metabolites (SMs) comprising a great variety of astonishing structures and interesting bioactivities. State‐of‐the‐art techniques in genome mining, genetic manipulation, and secondary metabolomics have enabled the scientific community to better elucidate and more deeply appreciate the genetic and biosynthetic chemical arsenal of these microorganisms.

Mycotoxins such as aflatoxins (AFs), ochratoxin A (OTA) fumonisins (FMN), deoxynivalenol (DON), zearalenone (ZEN), and patulin are stable at regular food process practices. Ozone (O3) is a strong oxidizer and generally considered as a safe antimicrobial agent in food industries. Ozone disrupts fungal cells through oxidizing sulfhydryl and amino acid groups of enzymes or attacks the polyunsaturated fatty acids of the cell wall.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in investigating the carcinogenicity of mycotoxins in humans. This systematic review aims to provide an overview of data linking exposure to different mycotoxins with human cancer risk. Publications (2019 and earlier) of case–control or longitudinal cohort studies were identified in PubMed and EMBASE. These articles were then screened by independent reviewers and their quality was assessed according to the Newcastle–Ottawa scale.

Mycotoxins contamination in cereal‐based food is ubiquitous according to systematic review of the scientific documentation of worldwide mycotoxin contamination in cereal and their products between 2008 and 2018, thus representing food safety issue especially in developing tropical countries. Food processing plays a vital role to prevent mycotoxin contamination in food.

In this review, we present the current information on development and applications of biological control against phytopathogenic organisms as well as mycotoxigenic fungi in Malaysia as part of the integrated pest management (IPM) programs in a collective effort to achieve food security.

Fungal contamination of food and animal feed, especially by mycotoxigenic fungi, is not only a global food quality concern for food manufacturers, but it also poses serious health concerns because of the production of a variety of mycotoxins, some of which present considerable food safety challenges.

Abstract

Monitoring of dairy products should preferably focus on the most relevant food safety hazards in the dairy supply chain. For this purpose, the possible presence of microbiological, chemical, and physical hazards as well as trends in the dairy supply chain that may affect their presence were assessed. A literature review was combined with available data from EFSA, RASFF, and the Dutch monitoring program on chemical hazards as well as expert information.