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Foodborne illness (also known as foodborne disease and food poisoning) [1] is any illness resulting from the contamination of food by pathogenic bacteria, viruses, or parasites, [2] as well as prions (the agents of mad cow disease), and toxins such as aflatoxins in peanuts, poisonous mushrooms, and various species of beans that have not been boiled for at least 10 minutes.
While many food contaminants have been known for decades, the formation and presence of certain chemicals in foods has been discovered relatively recently. These are the so-called emerging food contaminants like acrylamide, furan, benzene, perchlorate, perfluorooctanoic acid , 3-monochloropropane-1,3-diol (3-MCPD), 4-hydroxynonenal, and (4-HNE).
By contrast, a toxin is a poison produced naturally by an organism (e.g. plant, animal, insect). [2] The 2011 book A Textbook of Modern Toxicology states, "A toxin is a toxicant that is produced by a living organism and is not used as a synonym for toxicant—all toxins are toxicants, but not all toxicants are toxins.
Salmonellosis is a symptomatic infection caused by bacteria of the Salmonella type. [1] It is the most common disease to be known as food poisoning (though the name refers to food-borne illness in general), these are defined as diseases, usually either infectious or toxic in nature, caused by agents that enter the body through the ingestion of food.
Exotoxins are extremely immunogenic and trigger the humoral response (antibodies target the toxin). Exotoxins are also produced by some fungi as a competitive resource. The toxins, named mycotoxins, deter other organisms from consuming the food the fungi colonise. As with bacterial toxins, there is a wide array of fungal toxins.
The term is also used to describe toxic chemicals produced by plants themselves, which function as defensive agents against their predators. Most examples pertaining to this definition of phytotoxin are members of various classes of specialised or secondary metabolites , including alkaloids , terpenes , and especially phenolics , though not all ...
orange pigments . α-Carotene – to vitamin A carrots, pumpkins, maize, tangerine, orange.; β-Carotene – to vitamin A dark, leafy greens, red, orange and yellow fruits and vegetables.
They have been found in both pet and human foods, as well as in feedstocks for agricultural animals. Animals fed contaminated food can pass aflatoxin transformation products into milk, milk products, and meat. [2] For example, contaminated poultry feed is the suspected source of aflatoxin-contaminated chicken meat and eggs in Pakistan. [3]