Aflatoxin

(controversial)

Aflatoxin is one of the more pervasive and toxic molds out there. This is no surprise given the conditions in which it thrives best. Aflatoxin is found primarily on corn and peanuts, both of which are staples of the modern American diet.

This mold is recognized by the USDA as a cancer-causing poison. So it comes as no surprise that Dr. Hulda Clark’s research uncovered aflatoxin in virtually all of her cancer patients. Aflatoxin also appeared in all of Dr. Clark’s cases of hepatitis and cirrhosis. This mold attacks the body’s immune system, leaving the gates of our defenses wide open to pathogens.

Aflatoxin is not easily cleared from the body because it weakens and kills portions of the liver—the organ that is meant to detoxify our systems. Large doses or continued exposure to this mold will harm your health through its detrimental effects on the liver. That said, it can take weeks for aflatoxin’s effects to be realized, and it is both tasteless and scentless. So how can you know if your food is moldy?

In addition to thriving on corn and peanuts, aflatoxin is also found in your cereal, bread, pasta, nuts, maple syrup, orange juice, and other foods. The good news is that it is not found in dairy, fresh-washed produce, or water. Goods produced in bakeries that are left open to air also don’t contain aflatoxin, and the same is true for products made with carefully screened, deseeded wheat.

In short, given the common American diet, the possibility that you are consuming foods riddled with aflatoxin is very likely unless you take the proper steps to avoid this moldy invader. Dr. Clark advises preparing your own food, testing the foods you can’t prepare yourself, treating foods for molds whenever you can, and getting rid of the rest of it. One of the most important things to understand is that you can’t kill molds through the basic heating or reheating of food. Foods containing aflatoxin must be boiled for several minutes—at a temperature much higher than the boiling point—or else be baked at an even higher temperature in order to kill this mold. So if your food can’t be heated to an elevated temperature, this method will not kill the aflatoxin.

Some industrial research journals suggest treating food ingredients with hydrogen peroxide or metabisulfite, a reducing agent. While the introduction of these chemicals may kill the mold, however, that’s not their only effect. They also damage the nutritional value of your food—not to mention its flavor.

The only natural way to ensure that your food isn’t infested with aflatoxin, as Dr. Clark suggests, is through the use of vitamin C. Be advised that you should use whole-food vitamin C for this, not ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is not true vitamin C, but rather a chemical compound, as I will discuss later in this book. Only real vitamin C will have the purifying effect on your food that Dr. Clark identifies.

When baking your own bread, Dr. Clark advises adding a bit of vitamin C to the dough to keep it free of mold for a longer time. In both powdered and liquid forms, vitamin C is an easy way to quickly ensure the safety of your food. Still, be sure to consume the bread quickly, or slice and freeze it to prevent the resurgence of the aflatoxin.

Purchasing commercially available bread is dangerous, since vitamin C can’t be added before baking, and you can’t be sure how long the bread has been sitting on the shelves in a store or bakery since it was made. Other foods are also easy to treat with vitamin C. Rice and pasta can be cleansed of aflatoxin simply be adding vitamin C during or immediately after cooking.
Vinegar can be detoxified as well simply by adding some vitamin C before refrigerating it. You can even rid honey of mold if you heat it slightly and add a few tablespoons of vitamin C to the container.

Some foods, like nuts, need a slightly different treatment. Simply sprinkling vitamin C on nuts or corn will not remove the aflatoxin from these foods because they have already been penetrated by molds. Nuts have to be washed and covered with water that has been mixed with vitamin C powder. After five minutes, the vitamin C has detoxed the nuts and they can be dried in the oven using low heat.

Interestingly, many cultures traditionally treat corn in a way that naturally clears it of aflatoxin. The process that these cultures use is called “nixtamalization,” which involves soaking and cooking corn in a limewater solution. This alkalizes the corn, and the presence of vitamin C in the limewater rids it of aflatoxin.

Avoid the harmful effects of aflatoxin by steering clear of the common foods where this mold appears whenever you can, to ensure it doesn’t enter your system. However, keep in mind that, because the foods on which aflatoxin thrives are so common, a preventative treatment cleanse is also necessary to avoid ingesting this cancer-causing organism. I’ll talk more about cleanses in chapter 15.