Elimination of aflatoxins from peanut meal

Peanut meal containing aflatoxins was heat treated in the presence of moisture and chemicals to reduce the aflatoxin content. Treatments with ammonia, methylamine, sodium hydroxide and ozone were effective in either destroying aflatoxins or greatly reducing aflatoxin levels as indicated both by TLC analysis and feeding experiments with ducklings and rats. Weight gains for animals receiving the treated meals were essentially comparable to those for animals receiving aflatoxin-free meal. The treated meals, however, had somewhat reduced protein efficiency ratios, as indicated by rat feeding tests. Complete elimination of aflatoxins from contaminated peanut meal was achieved by extraction with a 90% acetone-10% water (w/w) solvent system. The extracted aflatoxin-free peanut meal gave good growth in the duckling and rat feeding tests, and had a relatively high protein efficiency ratio. So. Utiliz. Res. Dev. Div., ARS, USDA.