Did you hear about Toxicity by intrinsic toxins from foods of animal origin?
What is Toxicity?
Toxicity is the extent to which a chemical or mixture of substances damages living organisms.
Food that can cause Toxicity
Different kinds of foods can be a cause of Toxicity; these are the following.
Toxicity through Milk
When lactating cows feed on rations containing potentially toxic substances, they tend to secrete them in milk. Cows grazing on kale and other cruciferous plants secrete goitrogens in milk. In Tasmanian, in 1956, such dairy was responsible for the enlightenment of the thyroid in several children who consumed it regularly.
Similarly, aflatoxins find their way into milk when cows feed on contaminated rations infected with mold. Aflatoxins are carcinogenic and cause cancer in human beings. Pesticide residues and antibiotics are secreted in the milk of cows that feed on forage containing the pesticides or those fed antibiotics in the rations or treated for some ailment. These substances respond to Toxicity to consumers.
Toxicity via Honey
Honey bees may gather poisonous substances while feeding on toxic plants and deposit them in honey. These poisonous substances to humans often may not adversely affect bees. In other cases, toxic plants may also be deadly to honey bees, so they could be poisoned before they can store honey. Instances have been reported from various regions where honey bees feeding on poisonous plants produce honey toxic to humans.
Honey products from the nectar of Rhododendron ponticum (also known as Azalea political) contain alkaloids that are poisonous to humans but not to bees. Honey from the nectar of Andromeda flowers contains grayanotoxins (rhododendron poisoning, mad honey intoxication, or grayanotoxins poisoning) which can paralyze the limbs and eventually affects the diaphragm and result in death. The grayanotoxins cause intoxication. The specific grayanotoxins vary with the plant species.
These compounds are diterpenes, polyhydroxylated cyclic hydrocarbons that do not contain nitrogen. In areas where beekeeping has developed into an industry, the producers ensure that bees do not feed on toxic flora and that toxic honey may occur when inexperienced workers gather honey from wild bees and sell it in the market.
Toxicity via Quail
Among the favorite game birds, the quail (Coturnix coturnix) is implicated in food toxicity (ecotourism). These migratory birds feed on poisonous plants such as Hellebores and Conium macerated (hemlock) and accumulate coniine alkaloids in tissues. Coniine is fatal for humans at a level of 100 mg.
Effect of Quail meat consumption
Consumption of quail meat containing appreciable quantities of coniine results in labored respiration, paralysis, and asphyxia before death. Mortality from poison hemlock ingestion is usually secondary to respiratory paralysis.
Toxicity by Raw Eggs
Raw egg whites contain avidin, which forms a stable complex with biotin in the human intestinal tract, rendering it biologically inactive and interfering with the metabolism of other B vitamins.
Effects of Eating raw eggs
Thus, consuming large quantities of raw eggs, 20 raw eggs per day for several weeks, can produce symptoms associated with biotin avitaminosis (fatigue, depression, nausea, dermatitis, and muscular pains).
Toxicity from Poultry
A broiler is a rapid and efficient converter of feed into meat protein. The poultry feed consists of cereals, legumes (meals), salts, vitamins, drugs, and wastes. Meat and bone meal, including recycled poultry waste containing droppings, skins, feathers, blood, bones, intestines, egg shells, hatchery wastes, etc., are all used in poultry rations. Hence, the accumulation of chemical toxins in poultry meat is possible due to the use of poultry offal, feathers, blood, and bone meals.
However, the feed additives for the poultry include antibiotics (chlortetracycline, erythromycin, gentamicin, and others) used as a prophylactic measure and treatment of the birds. The residues of these antibiotics represent a potential hazard to human health. There is a danger of the emergence of resistant bacterial strains besides possible destruction of the beneficial gastrointestinal tract flora. Some drugs may cause direct Toxicity or allergic reactions in the consumer.
Time Duration for the appearance of the disease
The poultry birds have a concise life of a few weeks compared to cattle, which BSE appeared a few years back. The effect of defective feed, antibiotics, and other drugs may not become visible in the birds. However, in man, poultry meat may one day be diagnosed as a causative agent for some chronic disorder of unknown origin.
Toxicity from beef & mutton
Beef cattle, sheep, and goats customarily grazed in the fields. At the farm, they are provided with feed consisting of oil seeds, cake, wheat straw, and other ingredients. Unlike poultry, these are not fed drugs and antibiotics as prophylactic measures. They can pick up enteric organisms from the pastures.
Mode of Transmission
However, the meat gets contaminated during transportation displayed at the sale point. In Pakistan, hearts carries from the slaughterhouse to shops on any available mode of transport- handcart, bicycle, donkey-cart, tonga, rickshaw, and others. In the shops, it is displayed in the open, accumulating contamination through the environment (dust, smoke, and microorganisms from the atmosphere). Studies show that meat samples in Peshawar were found to be highly contaminated with heavy metals and bacteria and were considered unfit for human consumption.
Effects of Beef and mutton on humans
Infection of cattle by Taenia saginata, the beef tapeworm, occurs from grazing in fields. There seems to be no record in Pakistan. Still, people may be infected by the worm, resulting in indigestion, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, lethargy, loss of appetite, and anemia prevalent in our country.
Prevention strategies
Inspection of meat, proper cooking, and proper disposal of human excreta will prevent contamination with this worm.
Is Fish can cause Toxicity?
Fish is a more common source of human Toxicity among foods of animal origin. Some fish contain intrinsic toxic compounds, while others gather them in their tissues by feeding on toxic substances. Fish poisoning (tetrodotoxin) occurs mainly in China and Japan when some puffer fish (sometimes referred to as blowfish, globefish, or fugu fish) start to consume.
Presence of poison
Poison tetrodotoxin in ovaries, liver, intestines, skin, and spawn of various pufferfish species.
Symptoms of Poison
However, symptoms usually begin with numbness and tingling or prickling sensation of the lips, tongue, and cheeks within a few minutes after eating the poisonous Fish. This becomes complicated by weakness and progressive paralysis of muscles, vomiting, low blood pressure, and tachycardia. Death may occur within half an hour due to respiratory paralysis. Other fishes implicated in tetrodotoxin are porcupine fish, sunfish, and triggerfish.
Sources
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticides
https://rabiahabib.com/food-additives-did-you-hear-about-its-presence-types-are-they-useful/