Effect of the traditional cooking practice on fumonisin content of maize porridge consumed in the former Transkei region of South Africa

Fumonisin exposure in the rural district of Centane, former Transkei region of South Africa, has largely been determined from surveys of fumonisin levels in home-grown maize kernels collected from household storage cribs, rather than from the traditional cooked dishes. In this current study, five samples of home-grown maize kernels were ground in the conventional manner of the district, i.e. without separation of any kernel components. The contamination levels of total fumonisins (FB1+FB2+FB3) in the resultant meals ranged from 2.130 to 13.27 mg/kg. In each of two separate villages, five volunteer householders each cooked a portion of one of the maize meals into a traditional porridge. The resultant ten porridges were subsequently analysed for fumonisins by HPLC. The mean decrease in total fumonisin levels, based on a dry weight basis and corrected for recovery, was 11.3% (standard deviation 6.9%), confirming that preparation of traditional porridge has only a limited effect on fumonisin exposure in this population.