**7. The Homemade Foods Bill in the USA**

A regulation (HB 1926) in Texas addresses genuine concerns about the risks of the food and expanded distribution. The bill addresses food safety concerns in a scale-sensitive manner, allowing for safe home food production and sales. This benefits not only producers, but also consumers, who receive improved access to healthy, locally produced foods while still providing realistic opportunity for home production, allowing home preparation of foods such as tamales, canned vegetables, fermented foods, and perishable (potentially hazardous) baked goods. Sales would be allowed anywhere in the state, including through mail order and internet sales, as long as the producer and consumer were both in Texas.

Farmers who have unsold vegetables at the end of a farmers' market may send those vegetables to their customers, and home bakers can work with grocery stores or other retail outlets to sell their goods giving a huge boost for small businesses. Home processors would be subject to regulatory provisions.

A new Homemade Food Law in California (AB 626), the largest agricultural producer and exporter in the United States, was introduced in 2017 but may ultimately be designed to meet the needs of big tech companies above the needs of home consumers and other stakeholders [36].

## **8. Fermented Foods and Mycotoxins**

Food contamination with mycotoxins is a major problem in Africa. There is no doubt that fermentation and its products have lots of benefits. However, the fact still remains that some of the microorganisms used in the fermentation of food may become harmful under certain undesirable conditions. Microbial spores and mycotoxins such as those associated with *Aspergillus flavus*, *Aspergillus oryzae*, *Penicillium roqueforti* and other fungal toxins, such as those associated with *Fusarium*, are known to be lethal at moderate to high dosage. These toxins are produced when fermentation conditions are compromised and poor hygiene of food sources for fermentation persists during production, as happens in many African countries. *Clostridium botulinum* is an example of bacteria that causes poisoning in fermented foods and could be quite hazardous. Post fermentation contamination of products may affect the physiology of the products thereby becoming disruptive to health and deleterious to life. In order to prevent mycotoxin contamination of a fermented food, it is necessary to use a mycotoxin-free raw material and to prepare it in good sanitary and hygiene conditions [37].
