**14. Conclusions**

Total quality of food is the main goal to reach and a mission both for food industry and for the world Government Institutions. Quality means also safety, and this aspect is the most relevant goal to pursue and achieve. Consumers have often prejudicials ideas about risks as‐ sociated to food and feed; nowadays based on the information available, they tend to have a quite large knowledge about genetically modified microorganisms, phytopharmaceutical origin active principles, heavy metals contamination or unbalanced dietary habit. These are the main issues for the majority of the people. However, the perceived risk related to myco‐ toxin occurrence in food is very neglected and underestimated.

Aflatoxins are a serious problem for human health, and it is not possible to evaluate this threat without paying great attention to the exposure to these compounds. The frequency and level of mycotoxin presence in the food chain are grown up in the last decades, proba‐ bly due to the changed global weather conditions, to the market globalisation, and to the worldwide deployment of mold. The development of new analytical methods, more sensi‐ tive and more specific to evaluate aflatoxins presence, ensures the managment of the risk and, consequently, could allow to guarantee the safety of food from aflatoxin contamination. It is not possible however to completely avoid aflatoxins contamination in the food chain since the colonisation by molds and their mycotoxins biosynthesis are not under the full hu‐ mans control due to many different biological, genetic and biochemical reasons.

Consumers, together with safety food agencies and with the worldwide research, must max‐ imize efforts to reduce the global aflatoxin exposure. Focus should not be given only to Afla‐ toxin B1 for which the neologism ALARA where this acronym say "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" has been considered applicable.

It can be noted as final remark that, in general, consumers do not appreciate any chemical procedure, e.g. the use of alkali or acid solutions. The same results to control unwanted afla‐ toxins presence are achievable using ammonium or different physical or chemical ap‐ proaches. Another aspect regards the develop of a biological protocols that use microrganism generally recognised as safe for food (GRAS), a procedure that is considered much more acceptable by the consumers. Nevertheless, aflatoxins fate should be determined considering also the toxicological bioactivities of aflatoxins byproducts, like their many me‐ tabolites. It is important to determine these aspects before to propose new microrganisms able to detoxify aflatoxins without causeing any unwanted side effect, e.g. changes in senso‐ rial and technological properties of foods. In addition, any new method should be economi‐ cally convenient if compared with any actually used procedure, especially for food industry that may hamper for these economic reasons.

Safe food is a non-negotiable topic both for ethic reasons and for economic aspects. The so‐ cial costs linked to an increase of health conditions like liver diseases, or the problems con‐ nected to crop destruction, withdrawal of food from the shelves, etc., can be more expensive than a preventive actions to reduce aflatoxin presence in the food chain.
