Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences 2016; 4(6): 152-161 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/jfns doi: 10.11648/j.jfns.20160406.13 ISSN: 2330-7285 (Print); ISSN: 2330-7293 (Online) Parents’ Practices Associated with Aflatoxin Contamination and Control of Complementary Foods in Central Tanzania Selestin Ngoma 1, 2 , Bendantukuka Tiisekwa 1, * , Dismas Mwaseba 3 , Martin Kimanya 4 1 Department of Food Technology, Nutrition and Consumer Sciences, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania 2 Department of Public Health, The University of Dodoma, Dodoma, Tanzania 3 Department of Agriculture Extension and Community Development, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania 4 Department of Food Biotechnology and Nutrition Sciences, The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania Email address: selengoma@yahoo.com (S. Ngoma), tiisekwa@suanet.ac.tz (B. Tiisekwa), btiisekwa@yahoo.co.uk (B. Tiisekwa), dilmwase@yahoo.com (D. Mwaseba),martin.kimanya@nm-aist.ac.tz (M. Kimanya) * Corresponding author To cite this article: Selestin Ngoma, Bendantukuka Tiisekwa, Dismas Mwaseba, Martin Kimanya. Parents’ Practices Associated with Aflatoxin Contamination and Control of Complementary Foods in Central Tanzania. Journal of Food and Nutrition Sciences. Vol. 4, No. 6, 2016, pp. 152-161. doi: 10.11648/j.jfns.20160406.13 Received: October 22, 2016; Accepted: November 3, 2016; Published: November 25, 2016 Abstract: Parents’ practices that are associated with aflatoxin contamination and control in complementary foods were studied in Central Tanzania. A descriptive cross-sectional survey using interviewer-administered structured pretested questionnaire was conducted among 364 randomly selected parents of children aged between 6-23 months, and the mean age (SD) of the respondents was 30 (8.3) years old. The majority 33.2% of the participants harvest their crops in April followed by June which is 26.6%, March which is 21.2% and May which is 19% of all the participants. Most processing activities like dehulling, milling, drying, storage were analysed. The statistical packages SPSS (version 21) computer software packages were used to analyze the data. The results of logistic regression model for dehulling crops confirmed that respondents with less than or with US$ 22.8 as monthly income (OR=0.250, 95% CI: 0.111-0.564) were significantly 0.3 less likely to dehull crops (p<0.05) than respondents who earned more than US$. 22.8. On the other hand, petty trader participants (OR =3.712, 95% CI: 1.420-9.699) were significantly almost 4 times more with a tendency of dehulling the crops (p<0.05) than farmers. The study team recommends that parents should be trained on appropriate methods of drying, storage, and dehulling their crops after harvesting in order to control fungal and aflatoxin infestation. In addition, research on harvesting time, drying, storage, and dehulling practices of crops in Tanzanian is needed. Keywords: Aflatoxin, Parents, Post-harvest Practices, Complementary Foods 1. Introduction Aflatoxins are naturally occurring toxins produced by certain fungi, most importantly Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus, and they are widely recognized as a major health problem especially in hot, humid countries [1-5]. Major types of aflatoxins are B1, B2, G1, and G2; and metabolites of B1 and B2 are M1 and M2 respectively. AFB1 is the most potent of the aflatoxins. Aflatoxins have been rated as class 1A carcinogens by the International Agency for Research of Cancer [6-7]. They are heat stable and difficult to destroy during processing. Aflatoxins B1 (AFB1) and B2 (AFB2) produced by A. flavus and aflatoxins G1 (AFG1) and G2 (AFG2) produced by A. flavus as well as A. parasiticus can contaminate not only maize and other cereals such as wheat and rice, but also groundnuts, pistachios, cottonseed, copra, and spices [8-9]. In many developing countries, poor diet and multiple communicable diseases are associated with malnutrition and growth faltering in infancy and childhood. In addition, dietary staples in some of these regions are frequently contaminated with fungal toxins such as the aflatoxins [10]. Aflatoxin production normally occurs in the field, particularly when