Antinutritional Factors And Mycotoxins As Natural Hazards Threaten Food Safety

Plants in general, edible plants and legumes in particular commonly synthesized a range of secondary metabolites as part of their protection against attack by herbivores, insects and pathogens. Such secondary metabolites identified as antinutritional factors (ANF's) and naturally occurred as means to survive in adverse growing conditions. The term antinutritional refers to defense metabolites having specific biological effects depending upon the structure of specific compounds which include proteins, glycosides, terpenoids and alkaloids. So far, it's proved that legumes are very rich source of antinutritional factors. It's worthy to state that if human or animals consume plants containing ANF's may exposed to adverse effects, but not lethal ones. Legumes are unique human food, because their rich nutrient content including carbohydrates and high ratio of proteins. Their nutritional content contributes to many health benefits to human. So, the knowledge regards various ANF's present in food represent the corner stone to control, minimize and reduce them in the diet. As well, the recent studies showed that low concentrations of the biological active ANF's proved to have positive health effects on both human and animal health. Simultaneously, mycotoxins which are also secondary metabolites naturally occurred on a wide range of plants when infected by certain species of fungi. Mycotoxins prevalence in food of plant origin may be relatively higher during post-harvest stages. During harvesting, handling, storage and distribution, agricultural commodities are subjected to invade and infect by toxigenic fungi, which are capable to yield the secondary metabolites of mycotoxins. This review article aims to focus on the necessary knowledge about the two categories of the secondary metabolites of ANF's and mycotoxins to assess researchers and food processors to maximize the positive effects of ANF's and to minimize or eliminate the risk of mycotoxins.