Why is cheese mould unlike other mouldy foods, in that you can eat it and it’s even good for you?
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Mold is not universally harmful. There’s several strains of mold (and other small fungi) that are used quite commonly in culinary applications, like yeast, used in helping bread rise and fermenting alcohol. Koji (Aspergillus Oryzae) is used in a lot of Asian fermentation to create soy sauce, fermented black soybeans, miso, some types of tofu, and alcohol like sake. Most molded cheeses like bleu cheeses and bries use one of several strains of Penicillium – which you may recognize as sharing a root with penicillin, one of the earliest antibiotics. These molds have antibacterial properties that help preserve the cheese from bacterial spoilage.
The danger with mold is that, with unchecked growth, they produce significant quantities of toxins that can be harmful to humans, but all of these fermentation processes above use controlled environments to limit those to safe quantities.
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