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Avoid food with moulds; It’s poisonous – GSA

The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has called on the public to avoid the consumption of grains, meat and fish products that have mould growing on them, as they are cancerous.
According to the GSA, such growth, known as aflatoxin, was life-threatening and poisonous and could cause liver cancer, a weak immune system, stunted growth and death.
The authority also called on the public to desist from feeding their animals with contaminated grains, as the animals passed the aflatoxins on to humans when their meat was consumed.
A member of a GSA team that called on the Editor of the Daily Graphic ‘to solicit the newspaper’s support for a GSA public sensitisation campaign on aflatoxins’ in Accra yesterday, Ms Ruth Mma Alando, said the prevalence of mould conditions was high in the country.
Ms Alando, who is a Business Development Officer at the GSA, called for all hands to be on deck to help break the cycle of aflatoxin contamination, which also had international trade implications on Ghana, such as the rejection of food exports contaminated with aflatoxins, which often cost the country huge sums of money. Describing aflatoxin poison as a silent killer, she said the situation was more worrying because it was difficult for the public to identify processed food and animal protein contaminated by aflatoxin.
Aflatoxins are poisonous substances that are produced by certain moulds which grow in the soil, on decaying vegetation, hay and grains.
They are regularly found in improperly stored staple commodities such as cassava, chilli pepper, cottonseed, millet, peanuts, rice, sesame seeds, sorghum, sunflower seeds, sweet corn, tree nuts, wheat and a variety of spices.
When contaminated food is processed, aflatoxins enter the general food supply, where they have been found in both pet and human food, as well as in feedstocks for agricultural animals.
Animals fed with contaminated food can pass aflatoxin transformation on to products such as egg, milk products and meat, and subsequently to consumers.
Source:Fiilafmonline/Graphic