Mycotoxin mitigation by combined dry grinding before corn wet milling and steeping procedures

Fungal toxins (generally recognised as mycotoxins) contamination in foods with an agricultural base represents an important food safety issue. In this regard, food processing may play a key role in mycotoxin mitigation through different strategies. The present study focused on investigating the mycotoxin content in grinding before wet milling combined with steeping on a lab scale. Experimental groups included corn kernels giving steeping treatments spiked in five concentrations for each mycotoxin, including aflatoxins (B1, B2, G1, and G2), zearalenone, ochratoxin A, and deoxynivalenol, and mycotoxin levels were measured using HPLC. According to validation results, the detection and quantification limit was 0.033–20 and 0.1–100 µg.kg−1, respectively. All measured mycotoxins significantly decreased after dry-grinding and steeping procedures (p < 0.05), and this reduction was significantly (p < 0.05) higher in comparison to other studies that investigated the effect of steeping of whole corn kernels, which represents a vital role of dry grinding before wet milling. Dry grinding before corn wet milling help to distribute and availability of mycotoxins, which could enhance their water solubility and consequently reduce the mycotoxin content of corn during the steeping procedure.