Objective To explore the application effect of debate teaching in food toxicology teaching.Methods Taking the chapter of mutagenic effect of exogenous chemicals in the course of food toxicology as an example,totally hygiene quarantine specialty undergraduate students from March 2015 to July 2016 in our school for the course of Grade 2014 (n=37),Grade 2013 (n=49) were selected as subjects and conducted debate teaching and traditional teaching comparison.The students of Grade 2014 took the traditional teaching method as the control group,while the students of Grade 2013 took the debate teaching method as the experimental group.After the teaching of two groups,quizzes were used.to evaluate the students' learning of this course.In addition,the students in the debate teaching group were investigated by the questionnaire of the students' satisfaction with the teaching method and the learning performance of the students in the teaching practice at the end of the quiz.T test was conducted on the test scores of two groups of students by SPSS 16.0.Results The average test score of the students in the experimental group was higher than that of the control group [(7.24 ± 0.66) vs.(6.35 ± 0.82),t=5.575,P=0.000].49 questionnaires were issued to the students in the experimental group,and 49 valid questionnaires were recovered.The majority of students believed that the debate teaching method aroused their interest in the course of learning and enhanced their abilities and qualities.Conclusions The application of debate teaching in food toxicology teaching has good effect,and it can train students' comprehensive ability.