The Most Important Methods for Reduction or Detoxification of Aflatoxins in Food and Feed Matrices

Aflatoxins are the most important mycotoxins in many foods. About 20 different types of aflatoxins have been identified and the mostimportant species include AFB1, AFB2, AFM1, AFG1, and AFG2 1. Information achieved from the metabolic activity in human liver indicates that human beings have an average sensitivity to the acute toxicity of aflatoxin B1. However, these data may demonstrate higher sensitivity to the chronic toxicity of this toxin, especially to its carcinogenicity. Numerous studies confirmed that children may be exposed to aflatoxins by consuming milk from mothers who received aflatoxin in their diets. The potential risk of aflatoxin in diets is obvious and thus extensiveefforts are required to reduce or remove this food contamination 2, 3. Preventive strategies with regard to production of aflatoxins are divided into two phases of pre- and post- harvest. In preharvest phase, the fungal contamination control on the farm is considered 4. Weather conditions, such as the level of rain or temperature are some