Effects of Cooking on Toxins Levels and Influence of Food Additives on Toxins Level in Food Products

Authors

  • C Y Theng School of Food Science and Nutrition, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia
  • A.G. Jualang School of Science and Technology, University Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88999 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54987/jemat.v2i1.87

Keywords:

PAH; Cooking; Toxicant; food additives

Abstract

Herbal products are a major source of mercury contaminant in the diet of humans. Currently, monitoring of mercury is carried out by instrument such as Flow Injection Mercury System which utilizes the cold vapour atomic fluorescence spectroscopic technique. The handling and operation of these instruments are costly, time consuming and need skilled operators. In this work, the use of the papain assay to determine mercury in digested herbal samples after neutralization is demonstrated. About 20% of the samples tested showed positive results for mercury at levels higher than the maximum permissibility limit (MPL) and the results were validated using FIMS. The papain assay is low in cost, rapid and could be carried out in a microplate format. The papain assay can be the preliminary screening assay and only positive samples are sent for instrumental validation. This marriage between enzyme-based assay and instrumental method could increase monitoring frequency and results could be obtained faster

Author Biography

C Y Theng, School of Food Science and Nutrition, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia

School of Science and Technology

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Published

29.07.2014

How to Cite

Theng, C. Y., & Jualang, A. (2014). Effects of Cooking on Toxins Levels and Influence of Food Additives on Toxins Level in Food Products. Journal of Environmental Microbiology and Toxicology, 2(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.54987/jemat.v2i1.87

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2014)

Section

Articles

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