Abstract
In temperate areas, the main limitation to the use of maize in the food chain is its contamination by B-series fumonisins (FBs) during cultivation. Since the content of this group of mycotoxins may be distributed unevenly after milling, the aim of this study was to compare the distribution of FBs in maize fractions derived from two industrial dry-milling processes, that is, a dry-degermination (DD) system and a tempering-degermination (TD) system. Grain cleaning reduces FBs by about 42%. The germ of the two degermination processes showed a similar FB content of kernel after cleaning. Conversely, an animal feed flour resulted in a FB content that was two times higher than whole grain before cleaning. A significant FB reduction was observed in the milling fractions in both processes, with a higher reduction in the TD system than in the DD one. The average decontamination respect to uncleaned kernels in the DD process was 50%, 83% and 87%, for maize flour, break meal and pearl meal, respectively, while it was 78%, 88% and 94% in the TD process for small, medium and flaking grits, respectively. Among the milling fractions, the flaking grits with the highest particle size resulted in the highest FB reduction.
Highlights
Milling processes are methods that can be used to transform whole grains into forms suitable for conversion into consumable products
The effect of the cleaning operation on the FB concentration was significant, with a mean content in the pre-cleaned and post-cleaned whole grain of 1257 μg·kg−1 and 725 μg·kg−1, respectively, which corresponds to a content reduction of 42%
The abatement recorded in this production situation was on average higher than that observed for FB in previous studies with different cleaning steps
Summary
Milling processes are methods that can be used to transform whole grains into forms suitable for conversion into consumable products. They usually separate the botanical tissue of the grain and reduce the endosperm into flour or grits [1]. The endosperm is mainly made up of starch surrounded by a protein matrix. There are two types of endosperm and these influence grain hardness: floury (soft or mealy) or horny (hard or vitreous), which depend on the size, morphology and compaction grade of the starch granules and the nature of the protein matrix. The type of proteins in particular are the determining factor that can explain endosperm vitreousness [3]
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