Food Mold

[imoldernu]

ANY government or medical literature that discusses food mold, will strike terror into the heart of the reader more than any horror movie ever screened.

With the possible exception of some... just some cheeses, mold is to be treated with the some kind of avoidance as the bubonic plague, Zika, Aids, Ebola and all of the most dangerous communicable diseases.

Not to make light of a problem, but the question remains, who and how many people that you know have died from ingesting or touching mold on food. (and does cooking resolve the problem?) The answer is no.

Did you know that mold grows long tendrils (roots) that can go from one end of a food, like a cucumber, all the way through. (from several sources)

Would you throw out that $24 roast in the refrigerator, because of a one inch square of grey on one end?

Do you eat fresh corn? A Microscopic inspection might be in order before ingesting.

What to do when granddaughter has finished that cup of yogurt, and you notice a tiny fringe of mold on the edge of the cup?

Do you know the symptoms of mold poisoning?

Did you know there are 10,000 known varieties of mold, and possibly as many as 300,000 that haven't been classified.

Remember... we're talking about food mold, only.

Apparently a very underrated and often overlooked danger. Or so it seems.

 

[Gumby]

I just cut it off and eat the remainder. I'm training my immune system.

 

[MichaelB]

Mold is your middle name.

I thought mold put the stink in stinky cheese. Huitlacoche (corn mold) is a fine dining delicacy in Mexico. How can that be good and bad at the same time? LSD is a mind-expanding mold. (OK, maybe a bad example )

Life is dangerous. And exciting. Mold is the spice of life.

 

[Amethyst]

I guess I am not easily terror-struck. I think big fusses are only made by people who are looking to sue somebody.

Vegetable or fruit mold is rarely harmful, but it can taint the rest of the food with its nasty taste, so it's usually wise to throw the whole thing away. If it looks/smells salvageable, I'll cut off the bad parts and eat the rest. If there are any mycorrhizomes or whatever in there, I'll trust my digestive juices to settle their hash.

OTOH, *any* off-flavor to meat could mean something a lot worse for you than mold, so into the garbage can it goes.

ANY government or medical literature that discusses food mold, will strike terror into the heart of the reader more than any horror movie ever screened.

W.

 

[Amethyst]

Why, naturally:

When in danger, when in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!

Granddaughter will be amused, and you'll get some exercise.

A
What to do when granddaughter has finished that cup of yogurt, and you notice a tiny fringe of mold on the edge of the cup?

 

[harley]

If you didn't notice it and didn't taste it, it wasn't there.

 

[H2ODude]

Food mold doesn't bother me; just this week scraped some off an English muffin before I toasted it. My career was in water and sewage treatment, so I spent some time in nasty environments that makes me pretty tolerant of some things others would find unacceptable. IIRC studies showed operators at sewage plants generally suffered fewer colds/infections, supposedly owing to continued exposure to the wonderful world of mixed microbes.

All that said, mold of the kind generated by water leaks in buildings I will steer very clear of.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I would indeed throw out the $24 roast...well, that is if it has an odd smell. Usually, we eat our roasts/steaks as soon as they are defrosted...they cost WAY too much money to throw out.

How about "better before/use before/handle like nuclear waste after dates"? I pretty much ignore all of them and I am still around. I think I have eaten eggs that were 2 months or longer past the use before date.

 

[imoldernu]

Mold is your middle name.

 

[Sojourner]

I think I have eaten eggs that were 2 months or longer past the use before date.

Same here. The "use by" and "sell by" dates for things like eggs and milk seem to very, very conservative. Honestly, I think the only times I've ever gotten sick from eating tainted food was from invisible and impossible to detect stuff like salmonella. A little mold here or there on bread or fruit, if it's cut off or washed off, has never given me even a bit of GI trouble. Maybe the taste isn't perfectly wonderful and fresh, but it always seems to get digested with no problems.

 

[Sunset]

Meat being gray ( I mean food, not me ) is usually from sitting and the blood (and coloring/nitrates) have drained away, so I'll eat it.

I always do the sniff test for meat, since worked in a group home, and someone left the freezer door open for days?. Some of that meat when you sniffed it, invoked the gag reflex and/or brought tears to your eyes. I learned to trust my nose.

I have thrown out meat that failed my sniff test, even when it was $10 chunk as it's better to be safe than sorry.

Eggs are good for 2 months past the date when kept in the fridge.

 

[Happyras]

OK who remembers the old duck and cover movies in Elementary School? The one that the Gov produced that I always remember included a scene where the family emerges from their "fallout" shelter and must find something to eat. The Gov made a huge point that food in the refer was safe to eat even being without cold for the 10 day fallout period, what a joke. They showed how to scrape off the mold from a ham, showing it to be very tasty. When did the Gov change this opinion? Oh was it when they realized the fallout shelters were not going to save anyone?

 

[O2Bfree]

I'm less cautious about mold than about food that's not been refrigerated properly. I've had food poisoning a couple times likely from cheese that had no mold but hadn't been kept cold enough. I'm very cautious now with cheese on camping trips!

 

[Sunset]

OK who remembers the old duck and cover movies in Elementary School? The one that the Gov produced that I always remember included a scene where the family emerges from their "fallout" shelter and must find something to eat. The Gov made a huge point that food in the refer was safe to eat even being without cold for the 10 day fallout period, what a joke. They showed how to scrape off the mold from a ham, showing it to be very tasty. When did the Gov change this opinion? Oh was it when they realized the fallout shelters were not going to save anyone?

Maybe it was because of the way ham's were cured in the "old days" , they would hang for a very long time unrefrigerated to smoke cure. I recall reading there would be mold on them that had to be scraped off.
Now I think, hams are soaked in a liquid to fake the long smoking process.

I think the Gov, really didn't have much of a handle on Nuke stuff back then, as the NV testing caused fallout to fall across the US in the rain and snow.
When Kodak Accidentally Discovered A-Bomb Testing

"Two thousand miles away from the U.S. A-bomb tests in 1945, something weird was happening to Kodak's film"

 

[HFWR]

https://youtu.be/h_t4jO2OnEs

 

[Aerides]

My Gran would have scraped off the mold and said something like "can't be that bad for you, that's how they figured our penicillin!"

But yeah, cheese? Scrap it off, Meat? toss.