Destruction of aflatoxin in rice by different cooking methods.

Rice naturally infested with aflatoxin-B1-producing moulds, and rice samples to which aflatoxin-containing mouldy rice was added or rice samples to which aflatoxin B1 had been added were subjected to normal cooking for 30 min, cooking with excess water (25 g rice with 200 ml water) or pressure cooking (15 lb/in-2 gauge for 5 min). Initial aflatoxin content of the rice ranged from 0.02 to 4.00 p.p.m. in various samples. Normal cooking destroyed 49% of aflatoxin. Pressure cooking and cooking with excess water destroyed 73 and 81.6% aflatoxin, resp. Pressure cooking of rice seems to be an effective measure for reducing aflatoxin content.