Spices in Local Market and Their Contamination by Aflatoxins, Tripoli - Libya

• Najme Ahmed Mansour Essaweet

  Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences, Azzaytuna University, Tarhouna, Libya

  Author

Aflatoxins are considered the most carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic substances found naturally in foods and feeds. These metabolites cause liver damage to humans and to most experimental animal species tested. This study was conducted to assess the level of contamination of spices such as caraway, mixed spices, cinnamon, black pepper, red pepper and cumin sold in Tripoli market with poisons aflatoxins. The results of this study showed that the highest contamination of Afla B1 was in black pepper samples (12.1 ± 0.7 µg/kg) and the lowest contamination was in mixed spice samples (3.4 ± 0.2 µg/kg). The highest contamination of Afla B2 was in cumin samples as 10.2 ± 0.1 µg/kg, whereas the highest contamination of Afla G1 and G2 were also found in cumin samples 12.12 ± 0.09 and 7.6 ± 0.1 µg/kg, respectively. The contaminations of spices with aflatoxins were in various concentrations.

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