## 5 Food and Feed Contaminations of TAs and PAs  
There are various reports on cases of human poisoning due to contamination of food with plants containing TAs and PAs. [PERSON] et al., 2024 reported data obtained within the last 3 year (from 2020 to 2023) from the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), highlighting the main kinds of food products frequently contaminated and their greatly incremented contamination with these alkaloids in recent years, 20 for TAs and 51 for PAs [33]. _Datura stramonium_, _Hyoscyamus niger_, and _Atropa belladonna_ species can be responsible for TA (e.g., hyoscyamine, scopolamine, and atropine) cross-contamination with different food products for their similarity in morphological and botanical traits to other frequently consumed vegetables of the same family such as _Capsicum_, _Lycium_, and _Solanum_. This is particularly true for _Datura_ seeds, which, resembling capsaicin and cereals seeds, have been frequently mistakenly ingested. Moreover, these plants are globally distributed in all the warm regions of the world with a strong invasiveness [34; 60]. The most representative example of invasive plant for TA contamination is _Datuna stramonium_. This species, originating from North America, has become an invasive plant species in temperate and tropical climates worldwide. Its large-scale spread is significantly boosted by increased atmospheric CO\({}_{2}\) levels. The species' woody nature is evident from its ability to thrive and produce a high seed output even with limited water availability. The seeds, resembling  
Figure 5: Necine base types and types of esterification depending on the linkage between the necic acids and the necine bases. buckwheat and other grains in size and shape, are major contaminants of staple food cereals. Moreover, organic farming, which avoids pesticides, further increases this risk by allowing more weed growth, potentially contaminating flours and derived products such as pasta, bread, and baby foods. There are well-documented episodes of poisoning in which _Datura_ seeds have been the cause. For example, these seeds were responsible for the contamination of cereal products distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP), which led to over 300 hospitalizations and 5 deaths in 2019 [61]. In Italy, potential cross-contamination with toxic plants from the _Datura_ genus caused toxicity in spinach in 2022 [62] when high levels of atropine and scopolamine, reaching 4642 \(\upmu\)g/kg and 8158 \(\upmu\)g/kg, respectively, were detected. Until now, policies and regulations for TAs in food are rather insufficient. In 2013, a study on healthy young male adults exposed to TAs [63; 64; 65] allowed European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to define an acute reference dose (ARfD) of 0.016 \(\upmu\)g/kg for body weight, given by the sum of (\(-\))-hyoscyamine and (\(-\))-scopolamine. Consequently, in 2020 and 2021 the first European regulation was published to implement the monitoring of plants containing these toxins, then reported as high-risk food [66; 67]. In April 2023, these regulations were edited, reworked, and expanded for relevant food products, setting the maximum levels for atropine and scopolamine. In detail, the regulation currently observed for the control of these contaminants [67] has set a limit of 5-15 \(\upmu\)g/kg for unprocessed grains and a level of 25-50 \(\upmu\)g/kg for dry products, such as herbals, and 0.2 \(\upmu\)g/kg for liquid products, such as tea and herbal infusions. The _Heliotropium_ genus of Boraginaceae and the _Crotalaria_ genus of Fabaceae have been reported to be the primary sources of pyrrolidine alkaloid (PA) food poisoning in humans. Plants belonging to these genera may be present as weeds in cereal and legume crops, and their seeds can accidentally be mixed with the main crop. As a general rule, the closer is the relationship between the food and the PA-producing plant, the higher is the potential level of PAs in the final product [48].