Abstract
Author(s): Ashish Mukherjee*, Manvi Sharma, Savita Latkar, Priya Maurya
White pepper, or sometimes called pepper corn, is a kind of pepper that comes from tropical berries called Piper nigrum. White pepper is one of the world’s most favorite spices in history White Pepper is the most exported and traded condiment in the international scene. White peppers are best used for vegetables, sauces and casseroles. White pepper has low sodium content and contains about 0.2 mg of sodium only. It is therefore ideal for those taking a low sodium diet. It also acts as a food preserver. It is also used as an alternative medicine which helps improve flatulence and intestinal upsets. In some cases, it relieves nausea and may even help reduce fever and chills. The aflatoxins are a group of chemically similar toxic fungal metabolites (mycotoxins) produced by certain moulds of the genus Aspergillus growing on a number of raw food commodities. Aflatoxins are highly toxic compounds and can cause both acute and chronic toxicity in humans and many other animals. The aflatoxins consist of about 20 similar compounds belonging to a group called the difuran coumarins, but only four are naturally found in foods. These are aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2. Aflatoxin B1 is the most commonly found in food and also the most toxic and classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as 1st class carcinogen. The White Pepper, which is being used in different types of foods consumed by human being, to be free from Aflatoxin contamination or contain the permissible limit of same. In the present study Aflatoxin B1 contamination have been carried out in two varieties of White Pepper (Whole and Ground) collected from different parts of India and also to assess whether the White Pepper were safe for human consumption. The aflatoxin in White Peppers have been analyzed using HPTLC. 37 Samples of White Pepper (Whole) analyzed for the estimation of Aflatoxin. 36 samples are having Aflatoxin content below detection level. Only one sample contains 11.223 ppb of Aflatoxin. In FSSAI Max limit for Aflatoxin is 30 ppb.
