**1. Introduction**

In a world full of economic, health, and environmental crises, food security concerns have become one of the most important dilemmas of our era. Fungal infection and the resulting production of mycotoxins in crops are major problems caused by climate change as a result of global warming [1,2]. Cereals and grains are considered highly susceptible to such types of infection during the pre-harvest and post-harvest stages of their production; their availability has a vital role in preventing hunger and food insecurity [3]. Mycotoxins, the secondary metabolites of fungi, are considered a food safety challenge, threatening the lives of humans and animals due to their immune toxicity, carcinogenicity, hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, mutagenicity, and teratogenicity [4,5]. The pathogenicity and the toxigenic potentials of many fungal species, such as *Aspergillus*, *Claviceps*, *Fusarium*, *Penicillium,* and *Alternaria,* have been reported in various crops [6]. Their occurrence and presence in a specific food product at a specific geographic region depend on extrinsic factors related to environmental conditions fluctuation, such as temperature and relative humidity, which explain the effect of global climate change on the formation of these mycotoxins in agricultural commodities [7–9]. The type and the number of mycotoxins in foods and feeds are directly related to many intrinsic factors, such as the moisture content, the pH, the composition of the food, and many other extrinsic factors, such as the relative humidity and the storage temperature [10]. The most

**Citation:** Abou Dib, A.; Assaf, J.C.; El Khoury, A.; El Khatib, S.; Koubaa, M.; Louka, N. Single, Subsequent, or Simultaneous Treatments to Mitigate Mycotoxins in Solid Foods and Feeds: A Critical Review. *Foods* **2022**, *11*, 3304. https://doi.org/10.3390/ foods11203304

Academic Editors: Dapeng Peng and Yongzhong Qian

Received: 12 September 2022 Accepted: 19 October 2022 Published: 21 October 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

commonly known mycotoxins to contaminate foods and feeds are aflatoxins AFs (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1, AFG2, AFM1), ochratoxin (OTA), trichothecenes (deoxynivalenol: DON, nivalenol: NIV, T-2 toxin: T-2, HT-2 toxin: HT-2), zearalenone (ZEN), fumonisins B1 (FB1), enniatins (EN) [11–13], moniliformin (MON), beauvericin (BEA), and fusaproliferin (FUS) [14,15].

According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports, 25% of the crops in the world are contaminated by mycotoxins [5,16,17]. Eskola et al., found that this percentage is underestimated and that 60 to 80% of crops are contaminated by mycotoxins [18]. In the United States, aflatoxin contamination causes great losses in the corn industry, reaching up to USD 1.68 billion. According to the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), most rejection notifications at the EU border are due to mycotoxin contamination [19]. Regulations for mycotoxins are not available worldwide, especially in African countries. Mycotoxins in food and feed are extensively regulated in Europe. At the same time, aflatoxins in foods, particularly AFB1, are the most commonly regulated mycotoxins in many countries. Total aflatoxin limits in food were established in 2003 in 48 countries [20,21]. The maximum acceptable levels of the total AFs are 4μ/kg in the European Union and 20 μg/kg in the United States [16]. Globally, the maximum levels for AFs (B1, B2, G1, and G2), AFM1, and OTA in food are regulated by the codex standard CXS 193-1995 and established by the Codex Alimentarius Commission of the Food [18].

*"Prevention is better than cure"*, and this should be the first strategy for reducing mycotoxins in feeds and foods [22]. This preventive strategy aims at controlling the fungal growth and the production of these metabolites in foods and feeds in the pre-harvest and post-harvest stages by applying good agricultural practices and monitoring storage and processing conditions [23,24]. Practically, complete prevention of the formation of mycotoxins in crops is not feasible, which has triggered the need for alternative strategies aiming at decreasing or eliminating the amount of already produced mycotoxins in food and feed materials [25–27].

Chemical, physical, and biological technologies and treatments have been established and studied to mitigate mycotoxins in foods [28,29]. The success and efficiency of the method used to reduce mycotoxins depend on the food or feed characteristics [10]. Many studies have provided insights on a number of techniques designed for the detoxification of mycotoxins in liquid medium [30,31], such as in milk and dairy products using lactic acid bacteria biofilm [32], chitin, and shrimp shells [33] or by chemical treatment, such as ozonation [34] in fruit juices and wine [35,36] and in solid foods and feeds [37,38]. These technologies can be implemented separately, one by one, or combined in order to attain additive or synergistic effects in the reduction of mycotoxins in food or feed.

In this review, we focus on mitigating mycotoxins in solid foods and feeds only. We evaluate the effectiveness of chemical, physical, and biological treatments applied to solid foods and feeds to reduce mycotoxins when implemented separately and/or subsequently or simultaneously combined, as shown in Figure 1. In addition, we evaluate the effect of the different treatment modalities on the quality of the treated food materials providing their advantages and disadvantages.

**Figure 1.** Flow chart of the different mycotoxin decontamination methods discussed in this review.
