Re: A Warm Cup of Ochratoxin?

[Guest guest]

I put up a pot of water to boil, to make my morning instant coffee.

While I waited for it to come to a boil, I read the below posting, by

barb1283. I clicked on the first link to the U.N. Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO), and read the report. I noticed, at the bottom of

that report, a further link to the instruction booklet that the FAO

hopes that coffee growers and processors will read, to minimize the

amount of mold in my morning cup of coffee. As I was skimming through

that instruction manual, the water kettle began to whistle, from the

boiling water. I went into the kitchen, turned off the kettle, AND

MADE MYSELF A NICE CUP OF HOT CHOCOLATE!

Thanks barb.

............................................

>

> Coffee is usually contaminated with Ochratoxin A, from aspergillus,

as well as wine and grape juice. All articles on Ochratoxin in food

mentioned coffee. A few mentioned coffe, wine and grape juice

though. Perhaps the concern over coffee is growing due to the

increased consumption of coffee?

>

> http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0607sp1.htm

>

> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/14906.php

>

[Guest guest]

Live, You ask " where does it say 'large amounts of coffee in U.S. is

contaminated with ochratoxin', " No place. I didn't say anything about

it being in the U.S. As far as 'where does it say large amounts of

coffee contaminated with ochratoxin?'. Put 'Ochratoxin' into Google

and hit the 'search' key. Doing a search on just simply 'ochratoxin',

you will pull up alot of links to articles specifically on Ochratoxin

in coffee.

In my post I believe I also said I don't know if that is because it is

a larger source of orchatoxin than other sources, or if it is due to

fact that coffee consumption is up, and is already quit large. One of

the articles states that ...

... " After petroleum and possibly rubber, more money is made from coffee

beans than any other legally traded commodity. Global coffee

consumption is estimated at more than six million tonnes a year and

retail sales, mainly in Europe, the USA and Japan, are estimated at

some $70 billion a year. About $6 billion is paid to developing

countries that produce the raw material. "

So, perhaps that is why the focus was on coffee in many articles. But

all you need to do is put 'ochratoxin' and nothing else into Google and

they come up.

As for the 'U.S.', I didn't see anywhere that article, or my post,

mentioned the U.S. as separate in the subject at all. If you read the

article it says the contamination comes right from the raw cofee bean.

Research shows that beans that are damaged in some way, show

contamination w the aspergillus fungus, and I guess it is difficult to

harvest beans carefully enough to leave out damaged coffee beans, so

they are all roasted and ground together. Then if in storage they have

damp conditions, it gets worse. Conditions of original damage to

coffee beans by insects, etc, would be whereever it is grown, not just

the U.S.. Where things could be handled better is in storage

conditions. They didn't mention any specific country is doing better

on that than another there.

I hope that answers your question.

--- In , LiveSimply <quackadillian@...>

wrote:

>

> Where does it say that a large amount of US coffee is contaminated

> with OTA?

[Guest guest]

....but actually Live, my research DOES seem to say that most, if not

all, coffee is contaminated with ochratoxin. It's just a matter

of 'how much' is in it. There are efforts to figure out a way to

manage production to keep level low and try to figure out what level of

ochratoxin could safely be allowed.

Sorry..I thought you said that 'I said that US was singled out' in

article and it was not.

--- In , LiveSimply <quackadillian@...>

wrote:

>

> Certainly, there are

> issues, but I think it's inaccurate to imply that typically coffee is

> contaminated with OTA.

>

> That is also not what those documents Barb linked say. So why imply

that it is?

>

[Guest guest]

I did not mean to imply by article posted that the main source of

exposure from ochratoxin is by coffee. I was just doing a search on

information about ochratoxin and noticed the coffee articles. Although

I didn't see anything in articles that said US producers were better

than other countries. If so, glad to hear this. Can you recommend a

brand?

--- In , LiveSimply <quackadillian@...>

wrote:

>

> Responsible US food distributors and farmers (although there are only

a few

> coffee producers in the US and they tend to produce extremely

expensive,

> high end coffee only) devote a LOT of energy to testing food for

> mycotoxins..

>

[Guest guest]

Read a little more on Ochratoxin.

From reading I did, the level in cocoa beans is thought to be not

very significant but maybe that is from the perspective of 'average

serving' size or something. Found mainly in the cocoa bean shell,

perhaps it processed carefully, it can be shelled without passing

much mycotoxin along. I'm trying to think optimistically about

chocolate!!

Consumption through cereals and dried fruit is thought to be the big

exposures but since coffee consumption is getting very high so

consumption might be a big factor in why it is a topic of concern

right now. I had a cup of coffee anyway this morning Joe. Sorry to

have ruined your cup!

My interest was that Realtime Labs found Ochrotoxin in fluid that was

extracted out of my pancreas a couple weeks ago. Main critters in my

house were aspergillus, pencillin and mucor sp. I was concerned

about the mucor because causes systemic infections and it likes horse

hair and I have it all over my house. It's in old plaster and in my

house, all the carpet pads are horse hair, but Dr Rae said he was

more worried about the aspergillus. Interestingly when I was tested

for food allergies in Dallas at his clinic, I showed an allergy to

coffee, so when I read this, I thought perhaps that was why I reacted

to the coffee. No allergy to chocolate...yea! However I can't wean

myself off of the half cup of coffee I have, no matter how bad the

news is, and sometimes a second 'half cup'. When I heard the

results, I DID NOT suspect the coffee though! I just came upon it

and thought it intereeting.

Some people drinks LOTS of coffee and in multiple types of

beverages. I may try to cut it out entirely...but not today.

Realtime is doing a fungal culture too I'm waiting on. I had to make

it a top priority for several days to try to stop the lab from

throwing away the pancreatic fluid. It turns out if it went to

Pathology it would be kept for years, but since it only went to a

lab, it is thrown out in 3-7 days. I asked Dr Hooper to try to get

for me since the lab wouldn't talk to me about it and Dr Hooper said

he was unsuccessful. He said they were putting him through

a " chinese firedrill " , so I had to get Dr Rae to call for it. All

they were going to do was throw it away!! If they didn't want it,

why not give it to ME. It's my fluid! The insurance I pay for paid

for procedure to get it. The medical community is sooo disrespectful

to patients. You pay for the 'work' ahead of time and like anything

else, that means you will not get much after the means to get paid is

out of your hands.