There are many countries that some Europeans will never visit, yet they eat food from these places every day.
Checks on food imports found that five percent of hazelnuts showed ochratoxin contamination, while 10 percent of dried grapes, 20 percent of dried figs, as well as 50 percent of pistachios from Turkey showed aflatoxin contamination.
Damp climates, insect damage, and poor food storage facilitate the growth of mold and hence increase the likelihood and levels of mycotoxin contamination.
Aflatoxins are one of the highly toxic metabolites produced by fungal species, and are responsible for 28 percent of all liver cancers in the world.
In Africa, aflatoxins affect more people than tuberculosis and malaria, representing 40 percent of all liver cancers.
Turkey is just one example of where these food imports originate.
The aforementioned European Commission document included a long list of countries that the EU imports from, all with different levels of mycotoxin contamination.
Farmers fight mycotoxins with fungicides, which are chemical compounds or organic organisms used to kill parasitic fungi or their spores.
Going to the beach is a hazard because the sun can potentially cause harm; with sun cream managing this hazard by reducing unprotected exposure, thus making it not a risk.
In scientific language, the sun is a hazard, but spending time at the beach with sun cream is not a risk.
The current approval process does not take this into account, thus banning many chemical compounds for their theoretical potential of causing harm.
This would affect 60 percent of all agricultural imports in the EU, which could lead to even higher exposure of common foods to health-threatening toxins.