engleski

The effect of thermal processing on the reduction of maize fumonisin content

Fumonisins are naturally occurred Fusarium mycotoxins, which mainly contaminate maize and its by-products, especially during heavy rainy periods and in case of substantial temperature changes during the maize growth and harvesting period. The combination of processing time and temperature applied during thermal processing of cereals remains one of the most important methodologies through which industrial processing can reduce mycotoxin content. In order to establish the effect of thermal processing on the total fumonisin content in naturally contaminated maize, this study made use of cooking, roasting and extrusion cooking, run at different temperatures (100 – 220 °C) for a different length of time (10 – 30 min). Before and after treatment, contaminated maize samples were analysed for fumonisin content using a validated enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In comparison with cooking, which yielded a negligible mean fumonisin content reduction (up to 5%), roasting and extrusion resulted in a significantly higher fumonisins’ reduction (by 62% and 96%, respectively). A significantly higher (p < 0.05) and almost complete fumonisins’ reduction was achieved with extrusion at the highest temperature regime (135/190/190 °C - extruder’s dosing/compression/ejection zone). The results show that roasting and especially extrusion are effective and valuable methods able to significantly reduce maize fumonisin content.

fumonisins ; Fusarium mycotoxins ; reduction ; thermal processing ; maize

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