Distribution of the trichothecene mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (vomitoxin) during the milling of naturally contaminated hard red spring wheat and its fate in baked products∗

In order to assess human intake of deoxynivalenol (DON, vomitoxin) from wheat sources for regulatory purposes, the effects of food processing on DON retention and distribution must be known. Two hard red spring wheats (1 and 2) naturally contaminated with DON at 7.5 micrograms/g and 1.4 micrograms/g were subjected to cleaning, tempering and scouring processes then milled in the Grain Research Laboratory (GRL) pilot mill; the low-level wheat was also milled in an experimental mill (Allis-Chalmers mill) and commercial-scale pilot mill (Canadian International Grains Institute). Flours were baked into bread and, in some cases, cookies and doughnuts. No appreciable losses of DON occurred during the cleaning, milling or baking processes. Some fractionation took place during milling: up to two-fold increases in DON concentrations were observed in shorts and feed flour fractions, while lesser increases were found in the bran from wheat 2 (none for bran from wheat 1); there was some correlation of ash concentration with DON levels in the flour streams from GRL pilot milling of the two wheats.