Overview

Contamination of peanuts by aflatoxins is the most serious constraint on use of the crop for human and animal feeding as the presence of this group of toxins is known or suspected to lead to chronic and acute deleterious health effects including mutagenesis, carcinogenesis, acute liver failure and death (Mehan et al., 1991). Perhaps the second most important limitation on the use of peanuts for human food is the lack of convenient, tasty food products and processes for producing them. Thus, peanuts present both a rich source of nutrients – protein, calories, and vitamins – which are often lacking in developing country diets – but also a potential source of serious toxicological effects if aflatoxin-contaminated nuts are incorporated into those diets. The growing urbanization of developing country populations emphasizes the need for safe, convenient, nutritious foods for use by persons of all ages in a society in which women as well as men frequently work outside the home and have little opportunity for traditional food preparation. The proposed research addresses these constraints simultaneously by extruding contaminated peanut meal with lysine, a diamino acid hypothesized to be capable of destroying aflatoxin in the same manner as does ammonia. Extrusion is also capable of precooking and preforming raw plant products such as peanut meal, alone or in combination with starchy materials, to finished or semi-finished food products.