Interest of the treatments of raw materials and usage of adsorbents to decontaminate animal food containing mycotoxins.

Various methods can be used to treat animal food containing mycotoxins. Tec hniques aiming to eliminate altered fractions can be operated, for example in the case of fumonisins in corn. Generally, the thermic treatments and th e irradiation of food generally present only a weak interest. Various chemi cal methods leading to a degradation of mycotoxins have also been investiga ted. Although these methods are very interesting in the degradation of afla toxines, they are of lower interest toward fumonisins and trichothecenes. B ecause of the lack of effective decontamination of raw materials, the use o f adsorbent compounds is frequently envisaged. Alluminosolicates have demon strated their activity toward aflatoxines. A great number of clays, coal, o r resins has also been used. The protection which results from their use is often good during contamination by aflatoxines, but weak or moderate durin g contamination by fumonisins, trichothecenes, zearalenone.