Higiene e Segurança Alimentar

[Excerto] Como consumidores temos expectativas em relação aos produtos alimentares que consumimos, nomeadamente a sua qualidade nutritiva, pureza e segurança. O grau de exigência em relação à segurança dos produtos alimentares tem vindo a aumentar nos últimos anos e os consumidores esperam que o seu consumo não contribua para o aparecimento ou agravamento de doenças crónicas, como o cancro ou doenças cardíacas. (...

Chemical mixture in the crop production chain: a focus on mycotoxins

Several crops can be infested by filamentous fungi, both in the field and during storage. Some of these fungi, under appropriate conditions, are capable of producing a wide range of secondary metabolites mycotoxins, which may be produced in crops in the field, be accumulated during storage, and be resilient during food processing and persist in the final food product. Contamination of food products with fungi is frequent, and will impact food security and food safety. Cereals are the main contributors to mycotoxins exposure and maize is the principal staple food/feed crop exposed to mycotoxins, where the co-occurrence of multiple mycotoxins and their metabolites has been well documented. In this presentation maize will be used as a case study to illustrate the occurrence of chemical hazard mixtures in the crop production chain (with a focus on mycotoxins). The infection cycle, ecology, and plant-pathogen interactions of Aspergillus and Fusarium species in maize, determines a succession of species in maize, yielding a potential contaminated crop with fumonisins by some Fusarium species (e.g., F. verticillillioides, F. proliferatum), deoxynivalenol by other Fusarium species (e.g., F. graminearum), and aflatoxins by Aspergillus species (e.g., Aspergillus flavus), just to mention the most frequent ones. In addition, the plant pathogen interaction, as well as food processing after storage, may transform (or modify) these mycotoxins into to compounds that remain toxic but may escape official control. This presentation will give insights on the maize chain to illustrate the possible occurrence of multiple chemical hazards in a single crop.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Study on the possibility of aflatoxin M1 milk contamination from ingestion of contaminated feed by dairy cattle

ICFC 2017 - International Conference on Food Contaminants (Book of Abstracts)GA/EFSA/AFSCO/2016/01-02, from EFSAinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An overview of mycotoxins and toxigenic fungi in Portugal : data collected from 1999 to July 2003

Fungi are cosmopolitan and ubiquitous and have a strong ecological link with vegetable products. The natural mycobiota existing in conjunction with food and feed are of interest to society, since many of these fungi can produce compounds of interest (e.g., antibiotics, enzymes or organic acids). On the other hand, they may also be detrimental by promoting food and feed deterioration. Often, the mycobiota of food commodities is dominated by toxigenic species, such as Aspergillus, Fusarium and Penicillium, which may produce mycotoxins with effects on human and animal health. Aflatoxins, ochratoxins, patulin and the Fusarium toxins are considered to be the most important of the mycotoxins. Losses arising from the presence of mycotoxins have a large impact on the economy of countries

Fate of Aflatoxin M1 during cheese whey processing

Aflatoxins are a group of naturally occurring toxins, which are secondary metabolites of some Aspergillus spp. When lactating animals ingest aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) contaminated feedstuffs, aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) may be excreted to milk. Thus, AFM1 represents a potential hazardous to humans via consumption of milk and milk products. AFM1 is less mutagenic and carcinogenic than AFB1 but it exhibits high genotoxic activity. The maximum admissible level of this mycotoxin in raw milk, heat-treated milk and milk for manufacture of milkbased products was set at 0.05 μg/Kg by the EC. In cheese production, high amount of a by product – cheese whey – products is obtained. Cheese represents about 10 % of the initial mass of milk. This cheese whey may be further processed when whey is to be turned into more valuable products than animal feed or whey powder. One way is the use of ultra filtration, yielding a protein rich fraction (retentate) and a lactose rich fraction (permeate). Since whey proteins have a number of useful nutritional and functional properties, whey proteins can be used in a wide range of commercial products such as food additives or may be fractionated into individual whey proteins. The aim of this work was to study the distribution of aflatoxin M1 through the retentate and permeate when whey ultra filtration is carried out. To perform this study, cheese whey was spiked with AFM1 at a level of 0.1 μg l-1. Under the used experimental conditions it was found that AFM1 has a higher affinity for the rich protein fraction (retentate). These data will be presented and discussed