Mycotoxins differing from aflatoxins, production

Because of the uncertainty about the chronic toxicity of aflatoxin to man, many countries attempt to restrict its presence in food and feeds there are differences in approach from one country to another. The Food and Drugs Administration of the United States has set a level of 20/zg total aflatoxins/kg food or feed as the maximum permissible, this being a concentration which could be accurately and reproducibly determined. As analytical skills improve, there are proposals to reduce this to 15 //g/kg in consumer peanut products. The United States does not permit the dilution of consignments shown to contain aflatoxin with clean material. In Germany, levels of aflatoxin permissible in food are stricter but those in animal feeds are more permissive. In some countries there may be no legislation covering the presence of specific mycotoxins but Zambia, for example, has a statutory requirement that visibly diseased kernels should not constitute more than 2 % of maize intended for human consumption. ... 

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