English

Santos Barroncas Janaína,Ramos Xavier Lawrence,De Souza Viana Cibele,Kluczkovski Kunior Augusto,Silva Lima Emerson,Henrique Campelo Felix Pedro,De Carvalho Buzaglo Pinto Samir,Mendonça Kluczkovski Ariane

doi:10.5897/ajpp2019.5051

Abstract

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is a mycotoxin that can be found in cheeses and makes the monitoring of this food of public health interesting. In Brazil, the Amazon region has a cattle herd with dairy production of cheese, and an evaluation of the food and its risk to the population is required. The objective of this study was to evaluate the levels of AFM1, moisture content (mc) and water activity (aw) in different cheeses types, inspected or not by the food safety authority in the Amazonas State in Brazil. All samples of coalho-type cheese were found to be in compliance with mc and aw. Both mozzarella cheeses and Minas frescal cheeses presented average mc below the acceptable limits. As for the samples of mozzarella cheese, these presented aw according to the values acceptable by the legislation, however the average of the cheese Minas frescal was inferior to the recommended values. None of the 25 cheeses samples showed AFM1 contamination detectable by the HPLC method (LOQ = 0.0625 μg/mL). One possible explanation for the absence may be the lack of use of feed and confined animals, since in the state of Amazonas, for example, the milk-producing herd uses free grazing. Nevertheless, continuous monitoring is necessary since the consumption of cheeses produced in the state is relevant. Key words: Aspergillus, water activity, moisture content. &nbsp

Highlights

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is the hydroxylated metabolite of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and can be found in milk from animals that have ingested contaminated food by this group of aflatoxins and, in foods derived from contaminated milk (Caloni et al, 2006)
The mozzarella type cheeses were in agreement with the values acceptable by the legislation, the aw average of the cheeses Minas frescal was inferior to the accepted values, it is not aggravating since the smaller aw is difficult to be growth of microorganisms, being a problem only for the sensorial characteristics of the cheese
Similar results were found by Souza et al (2017) in which 98% of the analyzed Minas frescal cheese samples presented aw from 0.91, which is below the recommended value for this type of cheese

Summary

Introduction

AFM1 is the hydroxylated metabolite of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and can be found in milk from animals that have ingested contaminated food by this group of aflatoxins and, in foods derived from contaminated milk (Caloni et al, 2006). It is estimated that 1 to 6% of AFB1 present in animal feed persists as AFM1 in milk and can be detected 12 to 24 h after the first AFB1 intake and reaching a high level after a few days, probably associated with the protein fraction (Battacone et al, 2003). The objective of the present study was to evaluate.

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Results

Conclusion