Document Type : Review Articles
Authors
Food Toxicology and Contaminants Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt
Abstract
Food safety is the practices that ensure food does not cause harm and food safety hazard is any factor found in food that has potential threat or causes harm to the consumer, by causing injury or illness. Mycotoxins are a significant food safety hazard due to they represent a major threat to human and animal health. Mycotoxins are naturally occurring chemical hazards that can produce by certain genera of fungi, Asperigllus, Fusarium, and Penicillium as secondary metabolites. The major types of mycotoxins that have greater effects on food safety and human health are aflatoxins, ochratoxins, patulin, fumonisins, zearalenone, and trichothecenes. Mycotoxins are very stable molecules and their contamination in food can be occurring in pre-harvest and post-harvest stages. Prevention is an important strategy in mycotoxins control and should be achieved in pre-harvest and during storage stages, in both raw materials and processed food. There are methods for decontamination or detoxification that can be applied to food or feed contaminated with mycotoxins, provided that they do not affect the quality, the properties, or the safety of the food or feed. Continuous programs should be established to monitor the mycotoxins levels in food products during storage, distribution, and marketing to prevent any adverse effects on food safety and rather consumer health. Different methods were used for mycotoxins determination in food and feed such as TLC, HPLC, HPLC-MS, HPLC-MS/MS, and GC-MS. This review highlights chemistry, sources, occurrence, stability, prevention and control strategies, detection methods, and legislation of the most important of mycotoxins with special reference to the international and Egyptian standards.
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