Phytic acid, making up 1-5% of the composition of many plant seeds and cereals, is known to form iron-chelates and inhibit lipid peroxidation. Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), as an indication of lipid peroxidation, were measured in beef round, chicken breast, pork loin, and halibut muscle after the meats were stored for 0, 1, 3, 5, and 7 days at various temperatures [frozen (-20℃), refrigerator (4℃), and room temperature (25℃)]. Phytic acid effectively inhibited lipid peroxidation in beef round, chicken breast, halibut, and pork loin muscle (p$lt;0.05). The inhibitory effect of phytic acid was dependent on concentration, storage time, and temperature. At frozen temperature, the inhibitory effect of phytic acid was minimal, whereas at room temperature, the inhibitory effect of phytic acid was maximal, probably due to the variation of the control TBARS values. At the concentration of 10 mM, phytic acid completely inhibited lipid peroxidation in all the muscle foods by maintaining TBARS values close to the level of the controls, regardless of storage time or temperature (p$lt;0.05). The rate of lipid peroxidation was the highest in beef round muscle, although they had a close TBARS value at 0 day. Addition of phytic acid to lipid-containing foods such as meats, fish meal pastes, and canned seafoods may prevent lipid peroxidation, resulting in improvement of the sensory quality of many foods and prolonged shelf-life.

We have reported a sensitive, specific and simple direct competitive ELISA method to detect aflatoxin in agricultural commodities. We evaluated the ELISA for practical use to detect aflatoxins contaminated in the domestic and foreign agricultural commodities. The detection limits of the direct ELISA for residual aflatoxins in rice, pine nuts, corns, almonds, bean nuts, and pistachio were 10 ppb and in peanuts and cashew nuts were 20 ppb, which were elucidated from the standard curves of ELISA for aflatoxin fortified into the agricultural commodities. Residue studies of naturally contaminated aflatoxins in the agricultural commodities were also carried out by using direct ELISA. As the results of the studies, it was revealed that there were no residues of aflatoxins in 20 rice samples produced in south Korea, 20 pine nut samples in south Korea (9 samples), USA (1 sample) and China (10 samples), each of 20 almond, pistachio and bean nut samples in USA. However, aflatoxin residues were detected in corn samples imported from north Korea (350-585 ppb in 2 of 3 samples), from USA (109-326 ppb in 6 of a samples) and domestic corns (61-326 ppb in 7 of 17 samples). The toxins were contaminated in corn imported from USA for popcorn (17-20 ppb, in 3 of 10 samples) whereas no residues were detected in corn from south Korea and China. In case of cashew nuts imported from India, 11.4-23.1 ppb of aflatoxins were detected in 4 from 20 samples. Most of the contaminated foods were harvested before 1995. Thus, hygienic managements of the foods should be required during storage and circulation at market.