High occurrence of aflatoxin B1 in Pixian Doubanjiang, a typical condiment in Chinese cuisine

Abstract

Aflatoxin B1(AFB1) is one of well recognized mycotoxins and human carcinogens, which poses a great threat to the food safety, yet the occurrence status of AFB1 in Doubanjiang (DBJ), a famous Chinese condiment in Sichuan cuisine, has not been reported. Herein, we proposed a fast study to investigate the ABF1 contamination from three sources of DBJ products. High occurrence of AFB1 at 99.4%, was identified from 929 DBJ samples in this study. The AFB1 exceeding rates were 4.8% (22/456), 12.1% (18/149) and 17% (55/324) from DBJ manufactured by factories, workshops, and via homemade, respectively, according to the limit of 5 μg/kg from the DBJ National standard of China. Further, 6.8% (22/324) of homemade DBJ were identified to have AFB1 concentration larger than 10 μg/kg, indicting relatively high risk of food safety from homemade DBJ. Regarding the high occurrence status of AFB1 in DBJ, AFB1 monitoring in DBJ factories, the supervision of AFB1 contamination at free markets and proper guidance and implementations of AFB1 regulation on homemade DBJ are urgently needed to reduce the risk of AFB1 in this famous Chinese typical condiment.