Mycotoxin Testing in Food

Foods can contain naturally occurring toxins, known as mycotoxins. They can be harmful to both humans and animals, and therefore it’s important to run mycotoxin tests.

The risk of mycotoxin contamination to crops occurs during harvesting, drying and storage processes, but usually, contamination has already begun during crop growth.

Why Should We Test Food for Mycotoxins?

Mycotoxins occur naturally can cause serious health problems. These toxins come from moulds that grow on various crops and foodstuffs

The health problems that mycotoxins cause include:

  • Acute poisoning

  • Immune deficiency

  • Kidney damage

  • Liver damage

  • Cancer.

They have serious health effects, but also an economic impact, damaging livestock and crop production.

Mycotoxins are fungi and were first discovered following a disease outbreak that killed thousands of turkeys in England. This disease was originally known as Turkey X.

The toxins discovered here were aflatoxins and were carcinogenic. They came from a species of mould growing on an imported groundnut meal fed to the turkeys.

The most common effect mycotoxins have is suppressing the immune system. This applies to both humans and animals.

Subsequent research has uncovered several hundred different mycotoxins but the most common are:

  • Aflatoxins

  • Vomitoxin

  • Fumonisin

  • Zearalenone

  • Ochratoxin

  • T-2.

Which Food Can Contain Mycotoxins?

Common foodstuffs that can contain mycotoxins include:

  • Cereals

  • Nuts

  • Spices

  • Dried fruits

  • Coffee beans

  • Apples and apple juice.

Mycotoxins can also appear in most kinds of animal feed and products, such as:

  • Wheat bran

  • Maize grain

  • Pea pods.

Different mycotoxins affect various food staples throughout the food chain.

Aflatoxin is found in peanuts, corn, rice, figs, tree nuts and copra (dried coconut kernels).

Vomitoxin is found in corn, wheat, barley, sorghum, flour, bread, beer, baby food, liver, milk and eggs.

Fumonisin mainly affects corn.

Zearalenone is found in corn, barley, rice, oats, rye, sorghum, soya and wheat.

Ochratoxin is found in wheat, barley, peanuts and cocoa.

T-2 can affect corn, barley, wheat, oats and rye.

How Should You Test Food for Mycotoxins?

There are convenient, user-friendly and cost-effective ways to test food for the presence of mycotoxins.

Charm mycotoxin strips provide quick quantitative results. There’s a range of lateral flow strips available for testing for different mycotoxins, including aflatoxin, zearalenone and fumonisin.

The Charm EZ-M Reader is an automatic testing platform for reading these ROSA (Rapid One Step Assay) test strips.

Together, this combination of strips and reader make up an efficient, effective and rapid mycotoxin testing system.

The strips are fully enclosed, with no risk of environmental exposure before testing and the reader controls temperature and incubation time. It will interpret and store your mycotoxin test results automatically.

You can help maintain food safety and meet legal requirements by implementing your own mycotoxin testing regime.

For more details, please contact Calibre.

Rachael Smith