First risk assessment report of aflatoxins in Egyptian tahini

Abstract

Aflatoxins are very dangerous natural toxins that are mainly produced by fungal organisms that are attracted to oil seeds, nuts and spices, where they are causing health and economic problems. Therefore, in this study, 117 samples of tahini (a product made from toasted sesame seeds) were collected from different Egyptian governments from already known brands and, moreover, from local unknown sources. Thus, there was a need to assess the level of contamination of aflatoxins and estimate the risk exposure according to the average daily intake. Results indicated that 67 % were free from aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), 21 % exceeded the maximum permitted limit (MPL) and 12 % were below MPL from the total samples, while the national MPL is 2 μg/kg for AFB1. The AFB1 mean concentrations for the samples reached 0.1 ± 0.2 and 13.0 ± 19.3 μg/kg for branded tahini samples and local unlabelled tahini samples respectively. The assessment revealed two different levels of exposure to AFB1 between adults and children and for branded and locally unlabelled made tahini. There was a higher estimated exposure from local unlabelled tahini than branded ranging from 0.001 to 0.1 ng/kg b.w./day for adults and from 0.004 to 0.5 ng/kg b.w./day for children.