Fate of moniliformin during milling of Canadian durum wheat, processing, and cooking of spaghetti

Abstract

Tittlemier, S. A., Roscoe, M., Trelka, R., Patrick, S. K., Bamforth, J. M., Gräfenhan, T., Schlichting, L. and Fu, B. X. 2014. Fate of moniliformin during milling of Canadian durum wheat, processing, and cooking of spaghetti. Can. J. Plant Sci. 94: 555–563. Samples of clean Canadian durum were fortified with kernels damaged by Fusarium avenaceum at levels corresponding to the grading tolerances for Fusarium damaged kernels in Canadian durum wheat. Fusarium avenaceum produces the mycotoxin moniliformin (MON); the fortified durum samples contained MON ranging from 0.16 to 0.90 mg kg−1. The fate of MON was followed during milling of the fortified durum samples, as well as during the preparation and cooking of spaghetti made with the fortified durum. The majority of MON was associated with semolina, implying that removal of bran would not have a large impact on reducing MON concentrations. However, F. avenaceum DNA was more evenly distributed amongst the milling products, suggesting that MON underwent translocation from mycelium to endosperm in the damaged kernels. There was an apparent loss of MON when spaghetti was prepared from semolina. From an overall dietary exposure point of view, the cooking of MON-containing pasta in water will reduce dietary exposure to the water-soluble MON via leaching to the cooking water. However, the lack of quantifiable MON in samples prepared from higher grade Canada Western Amber Durum (which contained lower amounts of Fusarium damaged kernels) suggests that dietary exposure to MON from contaminated pasta is not likely to occur.