Eli5 how is it that you can get sick eating a tiny bit of moldy bread? How does your stomach acid not annihilate the mold
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The microbes themselves don’t cause damage. Rather, they create and store poison that either doesn’t react with stomach acid or stomach acid makes it worse. Think of it as a germ suicide vest. You eat the mold and the mold has it’s revenge.
The mold doesn’t hurt you. What the mold pees and poops out hurts you. Mold doesn’t cause an infection. Mold produces chemicals that the body doesn’t handle well.
That’s like asking why stomach acid doesn’t neutralize cyanide.
It does often get rid of any living fungal and bacterial cells. the issue is the toxins they release as they feed or die, many of which are heat and acid-resistant. few organisms on this planet are better at crafting toxins than bacteria and fungi, and only a tiny dose is needed to poison a human in many cases.
The premise of this question is wrong. You can easily eat a tiny bit of moldy bread and you won’t get sick.
Unless you have an extremely weak immune system, a tiny bit of moldy bread won’t do anything to you. As the amount of mold increases, the chance of sickness increases, for reasons others have already described.
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