What is it about?
Essential oils and aqueous plant extracts have been extensively evaluted as fungal growth inhibitors and aflatoxin detoxifiers under laboratory conditions, but do they have potential for use directly in foods? This paper examines the recent data on the beneficial effects of essential oils and aqueous extracts from plants and discuss the perspectives of their application in food products.
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Why is it important?
Fungi of the genus Aspergillus can develop naturally in food products such as beans, corn, rice and wheat. They produce the aflatoxins, which are highly toxic, carcinogenic compounds. Thus, fungi and aflatoxin contamination of foods is a major public health problem. Plant extracts have been studied as fungal growth inhibitors and regarded as safe alternatives in the prevention of aflatoxins in foods. Also, some aqueous plant extracts have chemically active compounds that inhibit the synthesis of aflatoxins by the fungi, which have increased the scientific attention on these issues.
Perspectives
I hope this article will be of interest for food scientists and processors involved in quality assurance systems for prevention of aflatoxins in the food industry. In particular, investigations on practical aspects of using essential oils and aqueous plant extracts in food products are welcome, to understand their potential effects on sensory characteristics and the maintenance of antifungal properties in the food during shelf life.
Professor Carlos A F Oliveira
University of São Paulo
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Antifungal Activity and Detoxification of Aflatoxins by Plant Extracts: Potential for Food Applications, The Open Food Science Journal, October 2018, Bentham Science Publishers,
DOI: 10.2174/1874256401810010024.
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