Comparing the fungi contamination of rice samples collected from local and non-local markets

Abstract EN

Rice (Oryza sativa) as a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in Asia.

Fungi can grow in the rice grains with specific condition and some types of these microorganisms can produce mycotoxins, it is considerd a high risk population because this toxin associated with health effects in order to provide evidence on risk assessment and may responsible for liver cancer.

The aim of this study to investigate the contamination level of 100 local and non-local rice samples collected from Iraqi and other countries markets and compared between the results by using pour plate method employed for the isolation of fungi.

The results showed that samples from Iraqi markets (different origins) especially imported samples, were contained high content of fungi when compared with non-local samples.

There are many types of fungi appeared in the collected rice samples like Aspergillus spp, pencillium spp, fusarium spp, Rhizupus spp, Alternaria spp and Mucor spp, and some samples were contained number of fungi higher than the acceptable limit of central organization for standardization and quality control in Iraq (COSQC), which is 1x104 CFU/g, and that consider very dangerous for the human health.