THE CONTAMINATION RATE OF AFLATOXINS IN GROUND RED PEPPERS, DRIED FIGS, WALNUTS WITHOUT SHELL AND SEEDLESS BLACK RAISINS COMMERCIALIZED IN SAKARYA CITY CENTER, TURKEY

Abstract

The investigation of this study is concerned with the occurrence of aflatoxin total (AFT) and aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in 120 specimens randomly bought from retail stores, bazaars, supermarkets and regional stores in Sakarya City center. Immune affinity (IAC) clean-up with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and fluorescence detection (FID) methods were used to investigate the specimens to determine the incidence of aflatoxin (B1, B2, G1, G2) contamination. The findings indicate that the percentages of ground red peppers, dried figs, walnuts without shell and seedless black raisins contaminated with AFT are about 72%, 51%, 64% and 64%, respectively. One ground red peppers (18.68-10.49 mu g/kg) and one specimen of walnuts without shell (10.26-5.06 mu g/kg) exhibit the maximum contamination levels of AFT and AFB1, respectively. Of all the contaminated specimens, two ground red peppers and one dried fig specimens (2.5%) exceed the recommended AFB1 (5 mu g/kg) limit defined by the Turkish Food Codex (TFC) regulations. This study presents the details of the first inspection regarding the presence of aflatoxins in seedless black raisin specimens in Sakarya City center of Turkey.