Mycotoxins in Raw Nuts

Mycotoxins are highly toxic secondary metabolites that are produced by fungi capable of causing severe health problems such as liver cancer to humans upon consumption. The moulds are often associated with groundnuts, herbs & spices, palm kernel and figs etc. They are known carcinogens and legislation limits the maximum permissible levels in a variety of foodstuffs for both human and animal consumption.

There are many different mycotoxins found within foodstuffs and at Minerva Scientific we have the capacity to analyse mycotoxins such as:

• Aflatoxins M1
• Aflatoxins B
• Aflatoxins G
• Ochratoxin A
• Fumonisins
• Trichothecenes
• Zearalenone

For raw nuts there are maximum permissible levels set by UK and EU law for Aflatoxins B and Aflatoxins G at low μg/Kg concentrations (upper limits for some nuts can be as low as 2 μg/kg and as high as 15 μg/kg). Aflatoxins are found in raw nuts primarily through the aspergillus fungus and that exasperates other respiratory issues such as COPD and Tuberculosis.

Measuring mycotoxins in raw nuts is therefore important for food and feed safety, and the main methodology utilised by Minerva Scientific — A Tentamus Company is liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). The aflatoxins are extracted using aqueous methanol then purified and concentrated on an immunoaffinity column and finally analysed by LC/MS/MS.

This allows us to measure the concentration of aflatoxins in nuts to levels of as low as 0.05 μg/kg. As such, our methods are suitable for analysis against the maximum permissible levels set by UK and EU law and can provide you with confidence in your raw nut products meeting the legal limits.

Please get in touch with our Minerva Scientific — A Tentamus Company ntific – A Tentamus Company team by emailing us at [email protected]!

This article was written by one of our experts at Minerva Scientific – A Tentamus Company, Benjamin Fryer PhD.