Moldy nuts
Harm of aflatoxin
Aflatoxin is widely found in grain, oil, food and feed. According to the statistics of FAO, about 25% of crops in the world are polluted by mold every year. Aspergillus flavus is one of the soil-borne molds. Because it has no host specificity, it can not only pollute monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants, but also damage the seeds of aboveground and underground plants, among which wheat, corn, rice and peanuts are the most seriously polluted. For humans, the target organ of aflatoxin is the liver. If you eat food containing trace aflatoxin for a long time, it can accumulate in the human body, leading to liver cancer and even death in severe cases. In addition, Aspergillus flavus can consume a lot of nutrients in feed, release energy, accelerate the deterioration of fat in feed, destroy protein, pantothenic acid, nicotinic acid, vitamin A, vitamin D and vitamin E, and reduce the nutritional value of feed.
Although aflatoxin is very toxic, it is necessary to ingest moldy food containing a large amount of aflatoxin at one time to cause acute poisoning diseases. For humans, chronic poisoning caused by continuous intake of subacute doses is more common, such as cirrhosis and hepatic fibromatosis. Not only moldy food, but also grains and peanuts moldy due to dust pollution during transportation may contain aflatoxin, which is harmful to human beings. Toxins gradually accumulate in liver, myocardium and muscle, enhancing their toxicity. Direct damage to the liver may lead to gene aberration (teratoma or stillbirth), but a large number of animal (mouse, bird and fish) tests have proved that it is highly carcinogenic and mainly induces liver cancer. Some people think it can also induce kidney cancer. The carcinogenicity of aflatoxin is obviously related to the role of other carcinogens such as dimethylnitrosamine.
Aflatoxin is a strong carcinogen, which exists in moldy peanuts, grains, nuts and rice. Liver cancer is directly related to the high content of aflatoxin in food. In order to prevent aflatoxin, it is suggested to store peach kernels, nuts and whole grains in a sealed and dry place, and not to eat moldy dried fruits, nuts, whole grains and other foods made of moldy foods.
The main symptoms of acute aflatoxin poisoning are nausea, vomiting, jaundice, liver pain and gastrointestinal bleeding, which can lead to death.
Prevention of aflatoxin
Buy food from clean, hygienic and reputable retailers; Pay attention to whether food is stored in a cool environment. If you find that the food packaging is not clean and damaged, do not buy it.
After buying home, keep the environment dry and clean (the temperature is preferably below 20℃ and the relative humidity is below 80%) and avoid direct sunlight. Pay attention to the shelf life of food and avoid hoarding too much food.
Eating before the specified "shelf life", any peanut or melon seeds with yellow-green mold or damaged, shrunk, discolored and deteriorated surface may be contaminated by aflatoxin. Carefully select and remove moldy grains before eating.
For this toxin, the best prevention and control method is to prevent the mildew of food such as grain. The main way to eliminate toxins is to add alkali to destroy toxins. When heated to 268℃-269℃, aflatoxin began to decompose and destroy. In addition, there are some ways to reduce the content of aflatoxin in food. When washing peanuts with water, the detoxification rate of aflatoxin can reach 80%, and frying or dry frying can partially destroy aflatoxin, and frying or boiling with salt is better.
Aflatoxin in rice is mainly distributed in the surface layer of rice grains, and 80% of aflatoxin can be removed by kneading rice for three or four times. Cooking in pressure cooker can also destroy some aflatoxins. Although the wash-free rice is mostly new grain, with less impurities and cleaner, it is necessary to wash the wash-free rice that has been preserved for a period of time before cooking.
Vegetable oil stored for a long time may contain a small amount of aflatoxin. Do not eat peanut oil raw. When eating, be sure to heat the oil to the edge of the pot to give off a slight smoke, or heat the oil to a slight heat first and add a proper amount of salt to boil it. Iodide in salt can remove some toxicity of aflatoxin, and then cooking can remove aflatoxin, which is beneficial to protect health.
So far, there is no large-scale and effective method to detoxify milk in industry. The most fundamental way is to prevent cows from eating poisonous feed.