Eli5 As early stages of mold spreads on food (ex. bread, fruit) would getting rid of the “infected” area make it safe to eat?
In: 6
No, because the mold has grown much deeper/farther than what you can see, like how the visible part of an iceberg is much smaller than the underwater part out of sight.
It depends on the food. For example if you have a block of a hard cheese like cheddar that has mold on part of it you can just cut the moldy part off and you’ll probably be fine. However with a soft cheese like brie that would not be the case. It depends on the food, how moldy it is, and how sensitive your stomach is.
Nope!
In general mold somewhere means mold throughout all the watery/soft bits.
Mold spreads all throughout soft foods like bread, juice-containing fruit and vegetables, cooked food, jam, nuts, deli meats, cream and yogurt. Removing the visible part doesn’t remove the mold, and *doesn’t* remove mycotoxins the mold can produce.
However if you have a hard salami, hard cheese, or hard vegetable like uncooked carrot, you *could* in theory remove the moldy bit and mold would probably not have gotten throughout the food.
Mycotoxins can survive cooking, so don’t even think about cooking fully moldy food in hopes to salvage it. At best you’ll get sick, [at worst it can cause cancer or death.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin)
Experience would suggest against doing that.
when I was fresh out of college, I bought some bacon. I wasn’t able to cook it right away. Then, I was really hungry for BLTs, out came the bacon – it was green on one end; but the rest looked fine – stupid young me decided to cook it. I ate it – really stupid me noted that it tasted “off”, but kept eating.
As everyone reading expects, a few hours later, I spent about an hour violently throwing up, and then promptly sleeping for about 12 hours.
lesson learned! (don’t learn it the hard way like I did – learn from my mistake)
Mold is not a plant, but it works a little bit like a plant.
Imagine that the food is the soil, and mold is a plant growing in it. The fuzzy bits you see on the surface are just the “flowers” of the mold. The fuzz produces spores, which are like plant seeds; they let the mold spread to other nearby foods too. But the “roots” of the mold are deeper in the food.
If the food is very hard and dry (like a block of hard cheese), then the “roots” grow slowly, and you can cut the moldy area out. But if the food is soft (like a fruit or bread), then the “roots” have gone further than you can see.
It depends on the food. Hard, dense foods such as cheeses (non-soft) can be eaten if the mold and an appropriate safety margin are cut away. Soft, airy (like most bread) or watery (like skinless fruit) foods can be thoroughly molded while only showing early signs visibly.
You can only see the “flowering” portion of the mold, not the roots or, in particular, toxins which can make you sick, so you have to know what you’re doing, which means researching mold growth on the specific food you’re looking at.
If i were speaking to an actual 5 year old, I’d probably answer “no”. But if you have a very nice parmesan or cheddar wedge with some mold at the corner, you’d be fine.
Eh. I drink about 3-4 smoothies per day made from bananas, pineapples, and strawberries and usually some strawberries have mold fuzz on a few which I typically just cut off, or, I’ll sometimes just throw them into the blender.
Haven’t gotten sick yet.
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